Rain Today, Rain Tomorrow
by elliemars
Summary: The worst part of a war is not fighting a war. It's the cleanup, the aftermath. Zell, unsure of where to go, of how to live with the memories of war fresh in his head, finds himself drifting after returning to Garden. Funnily enough, he drifts right into Seifer, who may have some answers. A story told in sets of short ficlets and drabbles. Zell-centric with eventual Seifer/Zell
1. Filleted

1.

The worst part of a war is not fighting a war. It's the cleanup, the aftermath. The trying to return to a normal life after having seen and done horrible and terrifying things.

Zell feels like he doesn't even remember what a normal life is supposed to be like. The others are better at it - or at least, they're better at pretending. But the mere weeks that have passed between making SeeD and fighting the sorceress in that awful future world seem to him to have been longer than the whole first part of his life.

It's not the little things that escape him. He remembers to eat three square meals a day and to go to bed at ten and get up at six. He remembers to leave his gloves behind when he goes out, to not stuff his pockets with curatives, he's only going to the library, he won't need all that. He remembers to check in with his friends so they don't start thinking he's avoiding them, even if he'd rather. He remembers to visit his mum twice a week or she'll fret over him. Maybe that's a big thing.

What he can't remember is how to properly live. The way he's pretty sure he used to. Laughing and having fun and not thinking every moment about how damn hard it is to just act freaking normal. 

2.

Quistis has to beg him to go with to Deling City.

"I can't handle him on my own, Zell," she pleads, looking even more tired and worn six weeks after the war than she did while they were fighting it. "Squall is too busy and Rinoa says she won't go and I just… I need someone to come with me…"

"My being there's not going to make him cooperative," Zell tries to argue.

"No, I know, but…" She heaves a sigh that seems far too heavy. "Maybe just if he thinks that someone wants him to come back, I mean besides just me, he won't believe a word I say…"

"I don't want him back here. He'd never buy that. And I don't know why you do," Zell adds harshly.

"It's not about what either of us wants personally," Quistis replies. Her lip is trembling and Zell really hopes she's going to hold the tears in, because she's come to him crying a fair few times in the past weeks. He wants to know if she cries in front of anyone else, but he's not brave enough to ask. "He's got to come back to Garden. If he's not at Garden, Cid can't protect him. And if Cid can't protect him, he'll be k…"

She bursts into tears without finishing her sentence. Zell takes her by the shoulders and pulls her into an embrace, letting her sob on his shoulder as he resigns himself to going with. Her crying isn't a ploy to guilt him into it - Quistis isn't that manipulative - but it accomplishes that feat all the same. He strokes her hair gently to try and calm her. "It'll be okay, Quis," he says, which is a complete lie. "It'll be fine. I'll go with you, we'll bring Seifer back. It'll be fine."

3.

"He ought to be groveling in there," Zell says meanly, listening to the quiet, undistinguishable murmur of the two men talking in the next room.

Squall, on one side of him, says nothing; Quistis, on the other, only shakes her head. They're all on edge, waiting for the results of Cid's meeting with Seifer. Zell knows what the deal is that Cid is planning to offer; whether or not Seifer will take it is impossible to say.

It has all been explained to Zell, he's heard the logic, but he can't grasp it with a sense of reality yet. That Seifer should be allowed to come back to Garden at all is an atrocity. But the fact that Cid is in there _begging_the traitor to return to Garden makes Zell sick to his stomach.

"Cid's going to be hated for this," Zell mutters, thinking out loud.

"He'll get past it. He's a good headmaster," Quistis says.

"He doesn't have a choice," Squall inputs, speaking for the first time all morning. "If Seifer doesn't take Garden's protection, he'll be hunted down by every government in the world before the year is out. He'll take self-preservation over pride. Cid knows that."

Zell grits his teeth. Squall's remark only fuels his anger. He's itching to punch something, but his knuckles are still scabbed over from that brick wall he assaulted in Deling City, so he has to hold back.

4.

"Honorary SeeD, huh?"

"Yeah," Seifer says, looking up from his book as Zell approaches. "Pretty pathetic, isn't it?"

"God damn right it is!" Zell huffs.

Seifer has been at Garden for a few weeks now, but it still angers Zell every time he thinks of it. Everyone else seems to be adjusting quickly - maybe due to the fact that Seifer's keeping a low profile, or maybe because most of the people who knew him before have left Garden by now; only a handful of SeeDs stuck with Balamb Garden after the war. Zell wonders every day why he's one of them.

"It's simple, Dincht," Seifer explains. "There's nowhere else for me to go. Why the hell would I come back here if I had _any_ other choice?"

"I know _that_," Zell hisses, feeling nettled.

"What's more pathetic," Seifer continues, closing his book and getting up from his seat, "is that you _do_ have some place else to go." He strides past Zell, and his lips hint at that superior smirk he always used to wear. "And yet you remain here."

He exits the library, leaving Zell to stand in the aisles by himself, fuming.

5.

He doesn't hear from the others much anymore.

Selphie went back to Trabia to help with the restoration right after the war; she didn't want to return to Balamb at all. Zell gets an occasional email or overly-emoticoned text message from her, proving that she's her usual cheerful self - or that she's determined that they think so, anyway. Zell can't say he's unhappy about her absence - cheerfulness is something he just can't abide these days. Not that he's _happy_ about it, either. He doesn't really feel much about it. Or about anything.

Nobody seems to ever know what Irvine is up to, so Zell has quit asking. Squall is back to his normal quiet self - except when Rinoa's around, and it becomes sickly obvious how in love they are, which is more than enough to put Zell off hanging around them. Not that it's often, anyway, because Rinoa isn't allowed in Garden for the most part.

Quistis has pulled away from him, too, after initially clinging to him with such desperation. Zell figures she needed someone to latch on to, she was so frail for so long after that last battle, and for whatever reason it was him. Zell couldn't number the nights where she cried herself to sleep in his bed, which had suited him fine, since it gave him an excuse not to sleep, which he wouldn't have done anyway. But those interludes became fewer and far between, and eventually stopped altogether; Quistis was recovering, pulling herself together. Or maybe she'd just found someone else's shoulder better suited to her.

Zell doesn't care much either way. He's not jealous, and he doesn't pine for her company, which was mostly depressing during those times anyway. He doesn't feel much of anything at all. 

6.

"Good morning, Zell," Rebekah says to him with a smile, the same way she does almost every day when he shows up at the library.

He nods in greeting, and sets a few books on the counter. Rebekah starts to scan them back into the library computer system.

"Oh, Zell," she says before he can take off into the refuge of the quiet aisles of books, "I, um… I have something for you."

She pulls something out from under the desk and hands it to him. Zell stares at the little card for a moment or two.

"It's a library key card," she explains, when he doesn't say anything. "It's so you can come and go, you know, without having to wait for me to open up in the morning. Or if you feel like staying late, you can lock up when you're done. I asked my supervisor and she cleared it."

"Oh," is all Zell can say, feeling a little bewildered. Sure, he spends a lot of time in the library these days - it's one of the few places in Garden he can be assured of some quiet - but he didn't expect Rebekah would take notice like this. Even if everyone was saying she had a crush on him.

She's waiting for him to reply, eyes wide. She's pretty. And sweet. And nothing else.

"This is great," Zell says, trying to sound enthusiastic. "Thanks. I was sure you must be sick of seeing me hanging around every morning."

"Of course not!" she scoffs, her cheeks pink. She beams at him; he can't quite work up a smile in return, so he just nods, tucking the card into his pocket.

7.

"Have you ever thought about teaching, Zell?"

"Teaching?" Zell repeats. "Um… I guess I haven't, no."

"A lot of our graduate SeeDs are considering it nowadays," Cid tells him, sipping from a cup of tea. "There's so few real-world missions nowadays for you lot. And with the recent influx of new students, our teaching staff is being stretched a bit thin."

Zell doesn't know why Cid is telling him this. He fidgets in his seat, feeling awkward. This isn't an official meeting of any sort; just a cup of tea with the headmaster. But Cid obviously has something to say to him.

"A lot of our SeeDs find that taking on a class or two helps fill up some of their downtime, so they don't get too bored here."

"I'm not… really the teaching type," Zell says.

"Are you sure? I'm not suggesting you go for full instructorhood," Cid explains. "You wouldn't be a preceptor or anything like that. Maybe a defense class, or something like that. One or two days a week. You're the only martial artist we have around here right now, so your expertise would be invaluable."

Zell knows what this is about. Cid can see that he's drifting. He's had a lot of downtime over the last six months or so; real SeeD missions were few and far between. Zell has failed to find anything to fill that void, and Cid has taken notice.

"I guess I can… think about it," he replies with a shrug.

"Good, good," Cid says, smiling warmly at him. "More tea?"

8.

In summer, the beaches around Balamb are always full of people. The ones near town with tourists and locals enjoying the weather; the ones further out, with cadets and SeeDs from Garden taking advantage of the terrain to do some training. Zell doesn't go to the beach once that first summer.

But when autumn rolls around and the nights start getting cool, and the ocean breezes sharp and cutting, he makes it a habit to get out once or twice a week. Sometimes during the day, but mostly at night, when it's so dark and quiet out on the sand that the roaring sound of the waves seems to become Zell's entire world. As a kid, he always loved the beach, would swim in the ocean for hours. These days, it's all about the solitude, the quiet, the feeling of being a tiny person in the face of a vast, vast universe.

Once in a while he finds other footprints besides his, wandering up and down the dunes, or just going down to the water's edge and then back up again. But he never runs into anyone else down there in the dead of night. Which is perfect.

9.

"Are you doing anything for Christmas, Zell?" Quistis asks him, in line at the cafeteria one day.

Zell pauses. He's so sick of that question. "Just going home to see Ma," he answers, and Quistis smiles and nods.

"If you're going to be free for New Year's, we're having a little get-together," she tells him, loading her plate with salad. "Just the usual gang and a few others. Cid's letting us use his office. You ought to come," she suggests.

"I'll probably be out of Garden," Zell says.

"That's too bad. None of us see you much anymore," Quistis replies, and the unspoken disappointment in her tone sets Zell's stomach to churning.

He'd really like to not have to lie to her. But she's too distant lately for him to feel safe confiding in her. Even his mum wouldn't understand, would be hurt if he told her all he wants to do over the holidays is to sit alone in his room and read or listen to music, to not be disturbed. So he'd lied to her, too. He's getting to be a pro at it.

10.

Christmas comes and goes without incident.

Ma sends his present in the mail: a set of long-sleeve thermal shirts for the unusually chilly Balamb winter this year, and a framed picture for his room of her, Zell, and his granddad, taken just a few months before he died. One practical present, one sentimental - she does the same thing every year. Zell stares at the picture for a long time, studying his carefree kid face and trying to figure out exactly what it is that is present in the picture that the war robbed him of. He can't decide where to display the picture, and eventually just sets it facedown on his desk.

Quistis comes by the day before to give him something as well, which surprises him. He feels shameful admitting he didn't get her anything, didn't really even think about it. "Please, don't worry about it," she tells him, looking embarrassed. "I didn't get anyone else anything. None of us really did the present thing this year. But I just… kind of wanted to give this to you."

He opens it, and it's a book - not a new one, a well-used one, the corners worn away, the spine faded. "It's my favorite book from when I was a teenager," Quistis explains. "I know you like to read, and the school library doesn't carry it, so I thought you might like it."

"Thanks," Zell says dumbly after he finds his voice again. "It's very… thank you."

Quistis only shrugs, like she hasn't just given him something extremely touching and thoughtful. Zell doesn't even know what to say to her. The fact that she did this for him, when they haven't been close lately, moves him in a way that has been unfamiliar to him for a while now.

"I'll see you after the new year, then," she says to him as she's leaving. "Have fun in Balamb!"

He assures her that he will, and shuts the door. And then sinks down to the floor, still clutching the book, feeling horribly guilty and hateful.


	2. Annexed

11.

Zell finds some solace in the fact that he's not the only one around Garden having trouble adjusting. The growing frequency of his middle-of-the-night encounters with Seifer makes that plain.

"You shouldn't be in here," he says grouchily one night, looking up from his book to find Seifer wandering into the library at half past two in the morning.

"You're in here."

"I've got a keycard," Zell says. "You're trespassing."

"It's nice in here at night," Seifer says, and then goes to a table on the other side of the room and begins laying out his books and folders. He's working on some kind of research project, Zell doesn't know what it is, but he does know that Seifer spends almost as much time in the library lately as he does. Which is part of the reason he's started taking advantage of his late-night clearance and coming here during off-hours. How Seifer figured out what he was doing to copy him, he doesn't know.

"I'm going to get in trouble if anyone finds out I let you in here," Zell says.

"How's that my problem?"

"Maybe it wouldn't be totally a bad thing. They could take away your SeeD."

"Yeah, what a huge loss _that_ would be," Seifer drawls. "I wouldn't get to finish all this _fascinating_ research Quistis has piled up for me."

"Can't you just do it during the day like a normal person?" Zell grumbles bad-temperedly, thoroughly distracted from his book now. This comment makes Seifer look up from his research, giving Zell a wry look.

"Says the guy who comes to the library at two in the morning to read novels," Seifer points out.

Since Zell can't argue this, he shuts up for a while, trying to pretend he's reading his book and thinking wistfully about what it would be like to wreck Seifer's face with his fists.

12.

Teaching is a lot easier than Zell thought it would be. Which is a pleasant change, because not a lot of things are easy for him these days. The kids taking his intermediate- and advanced-level defense classes are older teens mostly, and they're pretty snotty and cocky for the main part - that suits Zell fine; it means he doesn't have to baby them or go easy. He's not in the mood lately to baby anyone.

Just having his Monday and Thursday mornings taken up with classes makes a huge difference - it occupies him more than he expected, it keeps him busy, keeps him from doing too much thinking. Keeps him from wondering too much what life would be like if he actually left Garden.

13.

"How many are you up to now?"

Seifer looks up from the page he's been blankly staring at for the last hour. "What?" he replies groggily.

"You're researching GFs, right?" Zell asks, not because he's really all that interested, but because for once he's sick of just sitting in silence for hours on end. "How many have you found?"

Seifer sighs, shuffling his papers and books aimlessly. "A hundred and two," he answers, rubbing his eyes. It's nearly four a.m. and even though Zell is a regular night owl these days, even he's starting to get drowsy in the quiet, dimly lit library. "Most of them abso-fucking-lutely useless, too. There's a GF that casts Scan over and over. Where's the fucking use in that? Just cast it once and be done with it. Fuck," he finishes, slamming shut the large, moldy-looking book he's been perusing the past few nights.

Zell goes back to his own book, feeling satisfied. Making sure that Seifer is having a miserable night at least makes him feel a little better about himself.

14.

Squall finds Zell in the training center early one morning, preparing for his class.

"I think I should warn you, the girls have planned a surprise party for your birthday next week," he says, which does surprise Zell; he hasn't even thought about his upcoming birthday, almost forgot about it.

"What? Why? I don't want one."

"Yeah, that's obvious," Squall says dryly. "But they want to throw you one. They think you're too anti-social lately."

"Can't you talk them out of it?" Zell huffs.

"No, I can't. And I wouldn't anyway. I happen to agree with them," is Squall's reply.

Zell feels a sudden stab of anger, and he's about to say something indignant in response, but Squall goes on. "Can you just do everyone a favor and show up and pretend you're having fun? Quistis and Rinoa are worried about you and they're fretting. They talk about it all the time. I have to listen to it. All the time."

"Yeah? And what kind of stuff do they say about me?" Zell says, refraining from adding a bitter "behind my back".

"They think you're cold. You don't hang out with them anymore and you always seem angry. You spend all your time in the library or by yourself. They think you're depressed," Squall says.

"I'm not depressed, I'm just-" Zell begins, stops short. He wants to say he's just recovering from the war, all the terrible things that happened, the battles, but he doesn't know if he _can_ say that. That was nearly a whole year ago. Long past being a valid excuse for his behavior.

"Look," Squall continues, in a rare fit of talkativeness - he must really think this is important - "I know that people change. Especially war changes people, not always for the better. If you want my opinion…" He pauses, as if waiting for Zell to say he doesn't want it. "I think you're more serious than you used to be, not as carefree. That's not a bad thing in itself. But you do seem really angry."

"If they could just leave me alone about it-"

"Yeah, well, they won't," Squall interrupts. "So just go to the party and try to act like you're grateful, would you?"

Zell is so shocked by his brusque words that he can't even form a response before Squall turns and walks away.

15.

He shows up at the party for his friends' sakes, but he can't make himself enjoy it. The fact that he feels forced into going is enough to strip the fun from it.

When he leaves after only an hour, Quistis follows him down the corridor. "What is wrong with you, Zell?" she hisses at him, not completely drunk, but not sober enough to think twice about confronting him in this way. She grabs his arm to keep him from walking away from her.

"Look," he tries to tell her, exasperated, "I just… I don't feel like a party, okay? Go back and have fun with the others."

"You never feel like anything, do you?"

"I just want some peace and quiet, that's all," he says. Quistis stares at him as though she doesn't even know what she's looking at.

"How can you want _quiet?_ How can you even _stand_ it?" she breathes, gripping his arm painfully tight. "I feel like I've got to surround myself with noise just to keep from going mad sometimes. Or I start thinking about… about that place. That horrible… place."

Quistis is starting to shake. Zell can't form words. He's never heard her talk about this before, was terrified to ask, hoped she didn't feel the need.

"That darkness," she goes on, trembling; her eyes are wet, and Zell senses a crying spell coming on. "Like… like a terrible smothering blanket. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hear anything. Not even myself." She grabs him with both hands, and starts to sink to the floor; Zell slides down with her, trying to keep her from collapsing. "It was like I didn't exist at all. Like if I stopped concentrating on that fact for even a second, then I might just… vanish right out of existence."

She's sobbing into his shirt, and Zell feels cold and sick. Is that what time compression was like for her? He puts a hand on the back of her head and strokes her hair gently.

"Don't you remember what it was like?" she asks.

"No," Zell lies.

16.

Before Zell knows it, he's attending his second SeeD graduation ball. This time as a graduate, an instructor. It's been a long time since he had to wear his uniform, and it itches, feels like it's smothering him.

There are only six graduates this year, plus Seifer, whose post-war induction into SeeD last summer meant that this was technically his graduation ball, too. But he's nowhere to be seen. Quistis points this out when she approaches Zell halfway into the night, before he can find some excuse to leave the party.

"Can you go find him for me?" she asks Zell, looking somewhat exhausted and haggard. Zell knows she's been dealing with Seifer the whole day, and he feels some pity for her.

"Why?"

"Well I'd ask Squall, but he's busy, and I don't want to draw attention-"

"Not 'why me'," Zell says. "Why do you even want him here?"

"If I'm honest, I don't," Quistis sighs. "But Headmaster Cid says he's supposed to be here for the ceremony. So can you please?"

Zell agrees to go, torn between being irritated that he's got to go looking for Seifer and being relieved that he has an excuse to get out of the ballroom. He knows Seifer won't have gone far; Quistis has him on a pretty short leash, and he wouldn't risk getting in real trouble with Garden Administration. Sure enough, Zell only has to go out into the gardens to find Seifer standing in an alcove off the main path, with an expression that says he was really hoping that no one would come to find him.

"Quistis wants you inside," Zell tells him.

"Trepe wants a lot of things she won't get. This is one of them," Seifer says coolly.

Zell is annoyed, but he finds to his surprise that he doesn't feel any strong urge to pop Seifer one on the nose, like he usually does when they encounter each other. He's actually kind of sympathetic toward the other man just now. He'd certainly rather be out here than inside at the ball, even if the price of his escape is having to tolerate Seifer.

"What do you want?" Seifer asks after a few minutes, evidently not satisfied with Zell's continued presence. "Gonna drag me back inside like a naughty runaway?"

"What would be the point? You don't want to go and no one in there wants you around. It'd be lose-lose all round," Zell says flatly.

"Gee, don't pull your punches, Dincht."

"I'm only telling you what you already know," Zell spits. "Quistis and the rest only put up with you being at Garden because they have to. Nobody actually wants you here. And you sure as fuck don't want to be here."

Seifer is giving him a strange look - a stare that Zell can't define. He doesn't seem angry or offended. Zell hadn't said anything Seifer didn't know. "Then the question is," he says softly, "why the hell am I still here?"

"Just go back to the stupid party," Zell growls, turning to leave. He was wrong; he prefers the ball to this.

17.

The invasion starts out small.

First Seifer is at his table. His piles of books, papers, charts and graphs taking up all of Zell's precious space. The first time it happens, Zell overlooks it. The second time, he tries to make his displeasure known through scowling and mutinous grumbles.

"Do you have to sit _here?_" he snarls one day - but lowly, under his breath; it's the middle of the day and there are students all around them.

Seifer only shrugs, looking totally unconcerned. "Do _you?_" is his retort.

"It was my spot first," Zell mumbles - _way to go, very mature,_ he tells himself. Seifer rolls his eyes and tells him to just deal with it.

But Zell doesn't want to deal with it. He wants to be left completely alone almost all of the time - which most people seem to have finally grasped; but Seifer is insistent on invading his space, probably only because one of the few pleasures he'll ever have is knowing that Zell can't legitimately do anything to stop him from sitting wherever he likes, even if the other man is thoroughly pissed off about it. After a while, he just gets used to it. He supposes it could be worse - at least Seifer is quiet; he never tries to talk to Zell or really bother him at all (except by with his presence,) so it's easy to pretend that there's no one there at all.

18.

"You've been hanging out with Seifer a lot."

"We're not hanging out," Zell says, looking up from his lunch. Quistis has got her usual salad piled high with veggies on her plate, but she doesn't set it down on the table, which is good news to Zell, because it means she's not planning on staying. Just passing by to dispense some unsolicited - unwanted - advice.

"I see you guys together all the time."

"We just keep ending up… sitting together. That's all," Zell tries to explain. It sounds weak, even to him, but there's nothing else to say. No reasonable way to explain how sitting with Seifer in the library once in a while turned into sitting with Seifer in the library, the cafeteria, and sometimes the Quad during those stupid monthly SeeD meetings that someone decided they should have from now on. Before he knows it, he's spending more time alone with Seifer than he does alone with himself.

It's not horrible, either. Being alone with Seifer is no worse than being alone, period.

"I thought you hated him," Quistis remarks.

"I do," Zell says, but he thinks, _just not as much as a lot of other things._ "It's not like we're friends or whatever. We don't even talk. Him being around keeps other people away, which is nice," he adds, trying to sound flippant. The way Quistis' expression goes hard, he knows it was the wrong thing to say.

"Do you realize how cynical you've become?" she asks in a quiet, almost sad tone. Then she turns and leaves before Zell can get over his shock enough to muster a reply.

19.

"I think that concludes the formal evaluation," Cid says, closing Zell's file and setting it on the desk in front of him. "By all accounts, you're an exemplary SeeD and a model instructor. I don't have any faults to find in your file."

"Thank you, sir."

"The evaluations have been.. strange for me this year," the headmaster admits, sitting back in his chair. "You, Zell, had more real-world experience in your first week as SeeD than most graduates have their entire first year of working. How do I take that into account? What you and your friends did was not a Garden-sanctioned mission, not a test or some kind of training exercise. But I can't _not_ take it into account, either."

Zell shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. He'd rather that Cid doesn't bring it up at all.

"Your students all seem to like you very well," is Cid's next comment.

"Good. I mean, I'm glad," Zell says.

"Their comments are much the same across the board. You're fair, knowledgable, and extremely competent. You have a lot of respect from your students. They say you're not only good at teaching, but that you strive to make sure that everyone in your class achieves excellence."

"Oh," Zell mutters, feeling embarrassed. "I wouldn't have put it that way, but… that's nice to know."

Cid pauses, as though he's thinking of what to say next. Or perhaps how to say it. "They also say that you're stern," he remarks. "Very no-nonsense. Your fellow SeeDs have made similar comments."

A sudden coldness seizes Zell. The headmaster has been complimenting him ceaselessly since this interview began; there is the flip side he's been waiting for. "Work is work," Zell says defensively, "and I think it should be taken seriously, that's all."

"I agree with you. However, not all things are work," Cid says with emphasis.

Zell could argue that point, but instead he just keeps his mouth shut, and nods in agreement.

20.

"Change is pretty much inevitable. People always change. Pretty much all wars do is force people to change. It's only idiots who have the naive idea that things can be the same afterward, that everything will be all rosy and perfect like it always was," Seifer says.

Zell stares at him over the top of his cards. "What are you talking about, and why do you think I care?"

"I thought you'd appreciate the irony of everything. The fact that the only person in this whole goddamn place I can stand to be around is you," Seifer goes on. He traces his finger around the edge of his hand of cards, selects one, and puts it on the table. "Because you've changed. I think for the better. You don't sugar-coat things. You don't take shit. You're a lot more of a realist."

Zell is certain the remarks are meant to insult him, to rile him up, because what Seifer's describing are qualities that are also, coincidentally, found in himself - and if it were a year and a half ago, Zell would be fuming at any implication that him and Seifer are anything alike. Instead, surprisingly, he finds himself filled with a strange sense of relief. "Just play fucking cards, Almasy," he grouches, folding his hand.


	3. Open Doors

21.  
>Despite what he'd say if anyone officially asked, Zell wasn't at all bothered by the lack of field work as the months after the war started to roll into years. Balamb Garden had a very spare handful of trained SeeDs left afterwards, and even with the sporadic addition of new graduates from Galbadia and Trabia Gardens after the first year, the number steadily, if gradually, kept declining. But even so, there was rarely enough field work to be done to keep them all occupied, and Zell was happy to leave it to the others - fresher, more eager to please minds than his own. It wasn't that it disturbed him, the way it did some of the ones who had left - the fighting, the pain, the stress of life and death. But if he never had to see a battlefield again, he'd be just as happy.<p>

22.  
>"Galbadia Garden is only sending one cadet this year, but Trabia has <em>eight<em> who are ready to take the exam in June. Together with ours, that makes fourteen, and we don't have enough preceptors to go around. So that's why I need all hands on deck for the field exam this year."

Zell grimaces a little, tries not to look completely repulsed by the idea, and probably fails. "Yeah, I understand, but…"

"But what? You don't want to?" Quistis says sharply. Her whole person has become sharper since she became head of Garden Administration. Still, Zell feels the sting of her remark.

"Can't Trabia send some of their SeeDs to oversee the exam?"

"They're sending one, but they don't have any more to spare. Look, Zell, I asked you nicely to be polite about it, but this really isn't optional. We need every available SeeD for this mission. Or do you want it to end up the way ours did?"

"Fine, I'll help," he mutters, and Quistis looks smug.

23.  
>The exam goes as well as can be expected, even with Quistis' foreboding overpreparation. Zell is actually impressed by most of this lot of cadets - the Trabians have clearly worked hard to keep their education and training at level with Balamb, considering they only reopened their Garden less than a year ago. The SeeD who arrives with them is a tall, eternally perky brunette, whose cheery smile reminds Zell so much of Selphie that he actually begins to miss her. He's fallen out of touch with… well, with everybody.<p>

"Your lot are pretty good," he admits as he's sitting with the Trabian girl - Neena - and a few other SeeDs, working on their exam evaluations. "I'd pass them all."

"As well they should be," is her reply, along with a dimpled smile. "I work them like dogs to be as good as you Balamb lot. Not that they need me pushing them; they're all quite competitive. Selphie goes on and on about making Trabia Garden the best Garden of them all, and the students take her quite seriously."

She says this half-jokingly, but it still starts an argument between her and the Balamb SeeDs. Zell tunes out of it, taking his time on the evals, carefully wording all of his comments as he steadily makes progress.

24.  
>Zell never really thinks about the fact that Seifer's dorm is just three doors down from his until the other man comes barging into his room at half past midnight. Well, not really barging - he slips through the door very quietly, and then shuts it just as quietly behind him, pausing as though he's listening for footsteps in the hallway outside.<p>

"Uhh," Zell says, feeling baffled, "what are you doing?"

"Trepe's looking for me."

"So?" Zell tries to convey the huge amount of irritation he's feeling with his tone. Seifer looks back over his shoulder.

"So let me hide out in here."

"No," is Zell's immediate response. "Get out of my room. Anyway, you can't just come barging in here-"

"Door was open," Seifer remarks.

"That's not the point," Zell snaps, even though Seifer's probably right. He rarely locks his room door - doesn't like the feeling of being trapped. But that doesn't give Seifer the right to come strolling in any time he feels like it. "Are you drunk?" he asks next, which is a useless question, because he knows Seifer is; he'd watched the other man guzzling drinks earlier that night at the ball, before he himself had left early. Not that he really blamed Seifer. Being dogged by Quistis and the security staff the whole night would make Zell want to drink, too.

"No," Seifer denies the charge, sitting slowly down on the floor.

"I'm texting Quistis," Zell announces, grabbing his phone from the bedside table. He doesn't really want to summon her to his room at this hour, he just wants to threaten Seifer into leaving. Instead, Seifer scrambles across the small room and tries to grab Zell's phone out of his hand. Despite his state, his balance is fairly good; he nearly gets it.

"Don't do that," Seifer says commandingly, but he gives up on appropriating Zell's phone after the shorter man outmaneuvers him with some nimble weaving movements. "She won't think to look for me here. Just let me stay."

"And I'm supposed to, what, just go to sleep with you sitting there watching me?" Zell hisses. Not that he'd been planning to go to sleep anyway, at least not any time soon. He isn't even undressed from the ball; he's still wearing his full SeeD uniform, the collar high and tight around his neck.

Seifer looks at him like he can see right through him. And he probably can.

"Fine, _whatever,_" Zell spits, frustrated. It's not like he can _force_ Seifer to leave - he should be able to, but he can't. Instead, he spends most of the night laying wide awake, half-hoping Seifer will drunkenly try to climb into his bed so he'll have an excuse to beat the other man to a pulp. But Seifer just sits beside the door until the graduation festivities, which they can both hear in the corridor, are finally over; and shortly before dawn, he slips back out of Zell's room just as quietly as he slipped in. And still Zell lays awake for hours, unable to sleep.

25.  
>It starts to become a problem when Seifer annexes Zell's dorm room, the same quiet, subtle way he's done to all of Zell's other spaces.<p>

Well, Zell wishes it were a problem. But he's mostly unbothered by it on the whole.

Still, he feels he should put up some kind of a fight, for the sake of not being the complete doormat that Seifer probably thinks he is. "Why do I keep finding you here?!" he growls angrily one evening when he comes in to find Seifer lounging on his bed like he owns it, playing a handheld video game. He doesn't even answer, just sort of shrugs.

"You can't just come waltzing in here whenever you feel like it, okay? I don't go barging into your room at all hours, do I?"

"You're the one keeps leaving your door wide open," is Seifer's reply as he buttonmashes with both hands.

Zell grinds his teeth. He's not so stupid as to think that Seifer only means that literally. But he hates it when the other man talks in metaphors. So fucking pretentious.

Most of the time, though, he doesn't even care enough to fight. Seifer comes and goes as he pleases, wandering in and out of Zell's personal space at leisure. If Zell's honest, the quiet presence of another person is a nice change sometimes from the otherwise monotonous white noise of his every day life. He'd never admit that to Seifer, of course - but then, he doubts the other man would be around so much unless he thought the same way.

26.  
>"So what's the deal with you and Nida?"<p>

"What do you mean? There's nothing going on there."

"I think _he'd_ like there to be."

Quistis scoffs the comment away, stirring her soup. Neena, across the table from her, gives her a sly expression that suggests she's not giving up so easily. The Trabian girl has only been in Balamb for a month and her and Quistis are already becoming fast friends - so fast, in fact, that Zell's been hearing rumors of a different sort about the blonde's preferences, not that he believes that's the real reason Quistis is scoffing. "Go on, you can tell me," Neena says, while Zell, at the next table, tries to find the paperwork he has in front of him more interesting than the conversation going on beside him. "Do you fancy someone? Has poor Nida got a chance?"

"He doesn't, but not because I fancy anyone else," Quistis replies.

Someone drops a lunch tray on Zell's table. He doesn't even look up; he knows it's Seifer. No one else would sit with him when there are plenty of free tables around the cafeteria. No one else ever really sits with him, period.

One table over, Neena is still pitching for the pilot; she has a high, chirpy voice, kind of like Selphe - the kind of voice that cuts right through the majorly boring analytical reports Zell had been actually making some progress on before the two woman sat down next to him. "-if he tried to make a move on you," she says, stuffing a forkful of noodles in her mouth.

"If he tried, I'd shove my whip so far up his ass he'd be picking Malboro tentacles out of his teeth," Quistis replies coolly. Across from Zell, Seifer looks up, raising an eyebrow. He catches Zell's eye for a second, and Zell looks back down at his paperwork.

"That's no good, he'd probably enjoy it," Neena says in response.

Zell snorts in laughter before he can stop himself. "Zell!" Quistis says sharply, as both her and Neena suddenly turn to look at him.

"Sorry," he apologizes, trying to wipe the smile from his face. "I shouldn't have been eavesdropping…"

"No, it's not that. I just don't even remember the last time I heard you laugh," Quistis admits. She looks a little bewildered and surprised, and Zell feels horribly caught out all of a sudden.

"I didn't even know you could," Neena adds, but her tone is more teasing, as is her smirk. "I've never seen you smile or joke or anything."

"I… I make jokes," Zell says defensively. He tries not to sound accusatory, to play it cool, but he realizes with a start that _he_ doesn't remember the last time he really laughed. Not out of bitterness or frustration, but because something was actually humorous.

"Not funny ones," Seifer chimes in.

"Excuse me, did anyone ask for your opinion? Not that you can give one anyway, seeing as you have no sense of humor whatsoever," Zell spits back.

Quistis looks amused now. "You should smile more, Dincht," Neena says, giving him a sunny grin herself. "You're cute."

Everybody's suddenly looking at Zell, and he feels hot and uncomfortable. He pushes his papers into a sloppy pile and then snatches them as he stands up from the table. "Yeah, thanks," he mutters, not sure if she's making fun of him or genuinely complimenting him - and not sure which bothers him more. He hears Seifer chuckling as he walks away.

"Aw, I think you embarrassed him. Poor baby."

Zell wants to tell Seifer to shut up, and maybe slap him on the back of the head for good measure, but that would involve turning back around and revealing the fact that his face is totally red. So he just leaves instead.

27.  
>"Oh, Zell, you remembered," his mum crows when he wanders into the kitchen with a gift in hand.<p>

"Happy birthday, Ma."

She ushers him inside and fusses over him for a while, and he lets her, because he hasn't visited in four months and the guilt finally got to him. It's not on purpose; he really has been busy, and even when he lived at Garden before the war he didn't visit home all that often either. If he visits more than usual, his mum will start to think something's wrong.

She cries a bit over the gift he got her - a pretty bejeweled bracelet from Esthar - and feeds him and gossips about the neighbors, about whom Zell couldn't care much less. _So-and-so's niece from Dollet is staying in town for the summer, you know, and she's so cute - oh, that's right, she's just about your age, honey-_ Zell has heard it all before, and no matter how much he insists to her that he's too occupied with work right now to think about girls, he'll hear it again.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay the night?" she asks for the third time, as night falls and he's getting ready to head back in to Garden.

"I wish I could, but I've got class early in the morning," he says. It's only half a lie - he really does have class in the morning. She looks disappointed, but Zell gives her a kiss on the cheek and then leaves anyway. How is he supposed to explain how oppressive that room upstairs feels to him? That room that's a perfect showcase of his teenage self, since she hasn't moved a thing since he went away. The only things that are different are what he's changed himself - taken down the Garden posters, put away the sports equipment, and moved the framed picture of his granddad from the wall to the table in the corner, where he can't see it when he's trying (and mostly failing) to sleep at night. Doesn't do much good; not seeing it doesn't prevent him from thinking about all the war stories his granddad used to tell, the advice he gave, which failed to include some of the finer details - like the way you'd never have a good dream again, or the way you can pick out the smell of blood a mile away, or the way you start to see the ghosts of people you've killed everywhere - in the grocery store clerk's smile, or the laugh of the kid running down the street, or the pretty brown eyes of the girl who's just in town for the summer.

28.  
>"So. Centra, huh?" Neena says conversationally, fanning herself with the file folder. "I've never been there. What's it like?"<p>

"Just boring," Zell tells her, still reading his itinerary. She giggles at him - she does that a lot.

"Who else is on the team?"

"One cadet, Matt Briggs," Zell says, scanning the informational packet Quistis had given him, "and SeeD Duran. On the other team, SeeDs McNab, Lants, and Candria, and cadet Gina Sweets."

Neena makes a face at him. "I'd rather have McNab on our team. Nida's such a bore. All he ever talks about is flying."

Zell only shrugs. Personally, he's satisfied with the team assignments - if he's lucky, Nida and Neena will be talking so much between the two of them that they won't expect him to chime in.

"Do you think it will be dangerous?" she asks him, sounding excited.

"I dunno. There's no way to tell. We've explored ruins in that area before, and they weren't much to write home about."

"Hmm," she says, biting her lip. She looks giddy and nervous all at the same time; Zell knows that this is her first real field mission with Balamb Garden, and knowing her, she's probably eager to try and prove herself, to measure up to Zell and his lot. He wants to tell her it's not necessary to do something stupid like try and impress him, but he doesn't know how to say it without sounding like a pretentious asshole.

"Well, I'm gonna go grab some food," Neena announces, jumping up from her seat with the air of someone who has too much nervous energy to burn. "I'll see you on Monday morning, then!"

"Don't be late," he warns. She gives him a sloppy, joking sort of salute as she retreats, and Zell is tempted to get up and join her - feeling, for once, like some company might do him good - but she's already gone before he can think about it twice.

29.  
>Seifer strolls in late one night while Zell is packing. "What do you want?" he asks snippily, irritated by Seifer's presence - more irritated by the fact that he's not even surprised to find the other man in his room.<p>

"Going somewhere?"

"I'm off to Centra."

"What for?" Seifer says, managing to ask the question without sounding the tiniest bit actually curious about the answer.

"None of your business what for," Zell replies, cramming things into his duffel bag.

"Okay," Seifer says, holding up his hands. Zell watches him go to the mini-fridge in the corner and take out a soda. In only a few months' time, Seifer has managed to make it seem like he belongs here.

"There's some ruins or something they want checked out," Zell mutters with ill grace, feeling somehow forced into explaining even though Seifer hasn't said more than five words to him since he came in. He's shifting through the snacks in Zell's cupboard now, and Zell wonders if he's planning to stay the night - again - or if he just came to steal from him.

"How long are you going to be gone?"

"Why do you care?!" Zell snaps, his growing aggravation suddenly peaking. Seifer looks up from the bag of crisps he's been pondering.

"Just making conversation," he replies, unfazed by Zell's brusqueness. Of course, he's probably used to Zell shouting and snapping at him. Forever telling him to get out, go away, leave him alone. What's it going to take to make Seifer actually listen to him?

"Can you please leave?"

"Sorry?" Seifer looks up. _Now_ he looks surprised.

"_Leave._ Get out of my room. You're an annoyance. What are you even doing here, anyway? Just come to pester me?"

"Nope. Just came for snacks," Seifer replies, eternally nonchalant. It's gratingly annoying how utterly unaffected he is by Zell's anger. It makes Zell want to punch something. Seifer's face, for a start. Instead, he bites down his anger, and continues packing.

30.  
>"Dincht, can I ask you a question?" Neena says curiously.<p>

"Is it about the mission?" Zell replies, flipping through his file again. One more time. Not that there's much there; it's a search-and-map mission, it couldn't be more simple.

"Um… no, it's… personal," she says hesitantly. Zell looks over at her. She's been packing and unpacking her weapons, rearranging her gear - she's nervous. Neena is chatty even in the best of moods. Today she's running nonstop at the mouth, but Zell doesn't mind, since she mostly doesn't seem to expect him to join the conversation.

"Well, go ahead," he says, seeing no reason to deny her asking. He doesn't have to answer, after all.

"Are you and Seifer Almasy close friends?"

"We're not friends at all."

"Oh," she says, as if surprised. Zell shuts his folder.

"I guess you could say we're… close," he admits reluctantly, because that's probably the way it appears - which is why she's asking. "I don't care if you talk shit about him if that's what you mean…"

Neena giggles. "Uh, no, it's not that. It's… maybe… the opposite?" she says, as if thinking about it. "Before I came to Balamb, all I knew about him was what I'd heard, which was… not flattering, I guess. But I was surprised. He's a lot more… more…"

"More?" Zell repeats. Where is she going with this?

Neena is smiling at him now. She does that a lot - not that Zell minds or anything. "Mellow," is the word she finally picks, catching Zell off-guard. "I don't know. It's like… it's hard to hate him as much as I wanted to before I met him, for what he did to Trabia Garden. He's so, kind of, tame… it doesn't feel worth the bother."

Zell watches her start to repack all the gear she's been arranging. He's never thought about it - what other people think of Seifer. He tries really hard not to think about Seifer at all, despite the other man's continual presence in Zell's periphery.

"I was surprised I guess when I saw that you guys were friends," Neena goes on. "You guys are way different. You're so…"

"What? I'm so what?" Zell prompts, after she cuts herself off abruptly. She might be blushing - Zell can't tell, she's turned the other way now.

"You're kind of intense," she finally spills, shrugging. "Not, like, in a bad way, you know?"

No, Zell doesn't know. He feels tongue-tied all of a sudden. Of all the things people have said about him - and they've not all been complimentary - intense is a first. Neena's attitude suggests she means it in a good way, but before Zell can even begin to wonder how, the train lurches and begins to slow. Neena's smile is replaced by an expression of panic, as she tries to grab all her things which are still spread out on the seat.

"Shit, we can't be here already?!"

"Calm down," Zell suggests, watching her cram ration packets into the side pockets of her backpack.

"I'm gonna get docked points _already_ and it's only my first field mission…!" Neena grouches under her breath, clanking bottles of potion together as she packs with haste. Zell, satisfied that her attention isn't on him anymore, only smiles.


	4. Talk About It

31.  
>There are a lot of things Zell doesn't remember. Some things lost a long time ago. Some things he doesn't really care to remember.<p>

"Can you tell me what happened, Zell?" Dr. Kadowaki asks, bustling in just a minute or two after he wakes up.

It's a trick question - Zell _knows_ what happened, but his throat doesn't seem to be working; he doesn't say anything. The doc appears to be expecting this, and she hands him a paper cup of water.

"How are you feeling?"

"Umm," he manages to croak, but that's as far as he gets. The doctor checks his forehead and looks at his eyes, and then Zell sits up a little and sips his water.

"I think you're still a little scrambled," Kadowaki tells him, making some notes on a chart by the bed. It suddenly, sharply occurs to Zell that he's in the infirmary, which is not the last place he remembers being.

"Briggs," he says shakily.

"Briggs is alright," Kadowaki says.

"And that other cadet - what's her name-"

"Gina Sweets," the doctor supplies. "She's fine, too. Both of the cadets were unharmed - minor cuts and scrapes. You, however, got your brain rattled pretty good. This is the fourth time you've asked me about them already."

He takes her word for it - he certainly feels rattled.

"Do you remember what happened?" is the doc's next question.

He does - vividly - but his throat tightens up again. He just nods. Dr. Kadowaki gives him a sad sort of look. "Just sit here and rest a while," she says. "I'll come back and check on you in a little bit."

She's not even out the door before Zell drifts back into sleep.

It's three days before his head clears enough for him to feel lucid; he's had concussions before, but this one takes the cake. The doc wasn't wrong - he got his head pretty good and scrambled. Still, he's had worse.

Quistis comes to see him one morning. Her face is pale and she looks wan - and more human than she's looked in months. "We need to debrief," she says, all business. "I came in yesterday to see you, but you were… kind of out of it."

"Yeah, sure, I understand," Zell says, and he follows her upstairs to Cid's office, where Xu and the headmaster are also waiting. The hard set of their expressions says that they've already heard the story he's about to tell them - from the cadets, of course, he thinks a moment later; and whoever else survived, if there was anyone. He hasn't asked yet. No one seems eager to offer that information.

"I'm going to take you off active duty until Kadowaki clears you," Cid tells him at the end of the meeting - not that that means much anyway, because Zell was barely on active duty as it were - that trip to Centra was his first honest-to-god SeeD work in months, and naturally it was a disaster. "Your classes have also been suspended for the time being. Take your time getting back, okay? There's no rush, you know."

The doctor insists that he remain in the infirmary until she gives him a clean bill of health, and Zell can't but admit that he doesn't feel a hundred percent, even though his bones have mended, the burns healed over with shiny new skin, and the gash that ran from above his right eyebrow all the way across his face to his other ear is barely a fine line now. In a week, there won't even be any evidence of how close he came to dying - again - at least, not on the outside. The scars on his soul still feel pretty raw.

No matter - he was one of the lucky ones, wasn't he?

32.  
>Zell waits until the dead of night to slip out of the infirmary. He's not <em>exactly<em> escaping - the doctor did say he could leave in the morning; he's just stretching her definition of "morning" a little. Six nights is enough; he needs out of that place. He needs to be back in his own room, his own space, where if he chooses to sit up all night, restless, it won't be marked down in a chart.

Of course, he forgets that his space is not entirely his own these days.

"What are you doing here?" Seifer asks, putting down his book when Zell slides quietly into the room - and actually sounding curious, for once; Zell's sudden appearance has evidently taken him by surprise. It's strange to actually have a reaction out of him.

"I live here," Zell says flatly.

"Yeah, thanks, captain obvious. Shouldn't you be off in Centra? I thought you didn't come back until Monday."

Zell feels a faint sense of surprise that Seifer actually knows that. So he listens sometimes. He clearly hasn't heard what happened, doesn't know that Zell spent most of the last week in the infirmary. Zell wonders if anyone knows. He hasn't even seen anyone besides Quistis and Dr. Kadowaki since he returned.

"Woah," Seifer says in shock as Zell moves toward the bed and into the dim light cast by the bedside lamp. He's staring at the raw, pink burn patches on Zell's skin - his right arm is covered in them; his left only peppered. They'll still take a day or two to fade completely, but they look a hell of a lot better than they did three days ago, when Zell woke up for the first time. "Someone got the jump on you, Dincht," Seifer says.

"Yeah," is the only reply Zell can muster. Despite the niggling restlessness that has been plaguing him during his convalescence, all Zell wants to do is sleep - just sleep for days without interruption. He climbs into bed - ignoring Seifer, who is laying on the far side of the bed and watching him with equal parts bafflement and curiosity - and yanks the covers over his head.

"I guess you'll be telling me to get out of your room now," Seifer remarks, from somewhere outside Zell's cocoon of blankets.

"Seifer, I don't give a fuck what you do."

"Fine, then, I'll stay."

Zell doesn't bother to argue. He can't win with Seifer - whatever his reason, the other man will stay if he wants to stay. Besides, though he'd die before admitting it, Seifer's presence is exactly the thing Zell decides he needs at the moment - it's the one thing that can effectively keep him from breaking down and crying right now, like he's _so_ desperate to. Instead, he just drifts slowly into sleep.

33.  
>He gets caught before he even gets out of the dorms.<p>

"Bit late for a stroll, isn't it?" Seifer says conversationally.

"What are you, following me now?" Zell spits - but quietly; he doesn't want to alert anyone. It's not like he's_not_ allowed to go out of Garden whenever he likes, but he'd rather not try and explain his midnight wanderings to anyone he doesn't have to. Especially Seifer.

"Don't flatter yourself," Seifer replies, falling into step beside Zell as he heads toward the garage. "Where you headed?"

"Beach," Zell says, unsure of why he's even answering. And really unsure of why Seifer is asking. Probably only because he knows Zell will tell him.

"It's the middle of October."

"I am aware of that, yes," Zell says shortly, walking faster. Maybe Seifer will give up and just let him go. Not that Seifer's ever been known to do anything that makes Zell's life easier.

He goes into the parking garage and heads for the side door that will take him out through the mechanic's bay. Seifer follows, a few steps behind. "Not gonna drive?" he inquires.

"Rather walk."

"You're gonna freeze to death," Seifer says, sounding amused. Zell stops, and turns to look back at him.

"Thanks, _mum_," he says sarcastically. "Anything else? Are you gonna tail me all the way there? Is that your job now, to be my watchdog?"

Seifer is grinning, obviously amused at Zell's pique. "As it happens, I was on my way out," he explains. "Come on, I'll drive."

"Not allowed to take Garden vehicles out after hours," Zell says.

"'Not allowed'? Dincht, who do you think you're talking to?" Seifer grabs a set of keys off the rack on the wall, ignoring the sign-out sheet posted next to it. "Just get in the car," he orders. "It'll take you an hour to walk there."

Zell gives in only a little grudgingly. They drive for a while, winding down the coast for nearly a half hour until they can't even see Garden's lights or the city anymore. It's more than chilly when Zell gets out of the car, and he's not even wearing a jacket - Seifer was right, damn it - but he doesn't care, and he's not going to complain. He walks down among the rocks in the dark, stumbling and tripping his way toward the water.

As usual, Seifer follows. He sits down in the sand at the edge of the water, just a few feet from Zell, who thinks about walking away, but decides it's not worth the effort. Wherever he goes, Seifer's just going to shadow him, and he doesn't have the energy to fight. Not today.

"Didn't see you at the funeral," Seifer finally says, his voice quiet against the roaring of the ocean.

"You were there?"

"Everyone was there. All the SeeDs. Except for you and Duran," Seifer remarks. "I know he's on leave. You've got no excuse."

Zell pulls his knees up to his chest, shivering a little in the cold sand. He hasn't seen Nida since they returned; the other man was still in isolation last week. "What's Quistis gonna do, dock me ranks? I couldn't care less at this point."

"She was pretty broken up."

"Her and Neena were close," Zell explains. Why he's talking with Seifer about this, he doesn't know. He doesn't want to talk about it at all. Or he didn't, at least. That's what he told Dr. Kadowaki, and Quistis, and Cid. And himself.

"What about the others?"

"I dunno. I didn't know them all that well," Zell says. "I worked with McNab one other time. He was… kind of a goof. Always making jokes."

_Zell tried not to laugh. It was no easy task - McNab was going all out with his clown bit today. He had Neena rolling on the ground and the two cadets eating out of the palm of his hand - keeping their spirits high, their nerves forgotten. The other two SeeDs - Candria and Lants - had moved on ahead, apparently not amused by McNab's tomfoolery. Zell didn't know them well - they both had just transferred from Galbadia a few weeks before._

"The hell were you lot doing out there in the middle of nowhere, anyway?" Seifer asks casually.

_"__God, it's a fucking desert," Nida groused as they approached the site of the ruins. Not that there were many of them. A few scattered structures here and there, but not much in sight._

_"Intel says there might be some structure underground. There used to be a city here. Keep your eyes peeled for entrances," Neena told him._

_"Okay, you guys head half a mile east and then trail north," Zell said to McNab, who signaled back to his team. "Check in every five minutes whether or not you find anything. I really don't want to lose anybody in this wasteland."_

"Mapping," Zell answers with a sigh. "Officially. Unofficially, someone thought there might be a GF lurking out there, and they wanted us to check it out."

"Bullshit. I could have told you there wasn't," Seifer sneers. Zell looks up at him, surprised. "I've done nothing but research for the last two and a half years. I'm not allowed to do real work. But there's almost nothing I don't know about GFs."

Zell is a little impressed despite himself. So Seifer's good for something after all.

"Alright, then, what did you find out there?" Seifer goes on after the silence stretches for a couple of minutes. "I know six SeeDs and two cadets didn't get their asses kicked by some rogue GF."

"There was nothing out there," Zell says.

_"__This is a waste of time," Nida said._

_Zell was inclined to agree, but he didn't say that. It had barely been a half hour, but the sun was baking hot, and they had yet to see anything of significance - just piles of rocks, here and there something that might have once been a piece of civilization. "Stop complaining," Zell said._

_"Sir," Briggs called from behind him. Zell jogged back to join him._

_"Don't lag."_

_"Sorry, I'm having some trouble with my communicator."_

_"Don't be a downer, Nida," Neena said brightly, hiking on ahead with the pilot just behind her. "Just think, you could be back at Garden doing paperwork."_

_She turned back to smile cheerily at Nida, who wasn't assuaged at all by her optimism. She was still smiling when she trod on the land mine that blew her into a thousand little fleshy bits._

"Do you think it was a trap?" Seifer remarks.

"What?"

"Someone could have planted those mines. Galbadia, or Esthar. Then let some false information slip to lure SeeDs out there."

"God, you're paranoid," Zell mutters, which makes Seifer laugh. It sounds strange, in the dead quiet night, to hear.

"Is the headmaster going to look into this? There should be an inquiry."

"I don't know. Who cares?" Zell says sharply. "What does it matter? Doesn't change things, does it?"

"Changes how you look at things," Seifer says back.

But Zell doesn't want to look at things at all. He wants to close his eyes and pretend things aren't there. Wants to shove things down into the black space in the back of his mind where they can maybe disappear.

The smell of charred flesh. The sharp stab of smoke and sand in every breath. Slipping and sliding blindly, the dirt wet underneath his hands. Things Zell could have lived the rest of his life without experiencing.

"How do you deal with shit?" Zell asks. "I mean… you're freakishly well-adjusted. It really pisses me off."

Seifer laughs again, a loud, reckless sound. "Nah… I'm just a good pretender," he says in a tone steeped in bitterness. He stares at Zell for a minute, and Zell stares back, trying to read something in Seifer's face. There's nothing there, nothing but the faint gleam of Seifer's eyes in the light of the half-moon. There's never anything there - Seifer is even better than Zell is at keeping things back in the dark space.

"Watching you helps," he says conversationally a few moments later.

"What?"

"Sure. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from totally losing it is knowing that you're even worse than I am at keeping your shit together. Makes me feel better about myself."

"You are such an incredible asshole, you know that?" Zell spits, kicking sand at Seifer as he abruptly gets to his feet. The other man only laughs again as Zell stalks back up the beach toward the car.

"Where are you going?" Seifer calls. "I've got the keys. Have a nice walk back to Garden; I'll see you in the morning."

"I don't know what stupid part of me thought you might actually act like a decent human being for once, and, like… actually say something helpful."

"I don't know, either." Seifer gets up and ambles back toward the car. "Let's go back. I'm freezing my ass off out here."

Zell refuses to speak as they drive back to town, the heat cranked up. He shouldn't have expected more out of Seifer than mocking. "Man, what are you in such a snit about?" Seifer asks as they're walking back through the dark parking garage toward Garden's main building.

"I don't know," Zell says bad-temperedly, which is the truth.

"You don't know? I'll tell you," Seifer replies, sounding irritated - which is something, at least. "You're disappointed? You thought I was gonna comfort you and tell you everything's going to be okay? You're barking up the wrong tree, Dincht. If you want someone to coddle you, try Rinoa. Or Quistis. Someone who's got their shit together."

They slip into the silent corridors of the sleeping academy and head for the dorms, Seifer walking briskly in front. In a quiet but firm voice, he goes on, "I know what it's like to be always fighting with yourself. And to lose. I'll tell it like it is. If that's what you want, that's me." He pauses, still walking, to look back at Zell, who is taking in this speech without comment. "If you want to pretend you're fine, stick your head in the sand, well… find someone else to go crying to."

Zell thinks about this as they navigate the empty halls until they're back at his dorm room. "Alright, I get it," he says as they're standing outside the door, Seifer not even pretending he's not going to barge in the way he does every night. "But you're the one who tagged along with me tonight, aren't you?"

Seifer smirks, shakes his head, and then goes inside, scoffing something under his breath. Zell, smiling and feeling strangely triumphant, follows.

34.  
>Zell stares in disbelief at the paper in front of him.<p>

"I was as lenient as I could be," Cid explains to him, in a voice that's not stern but sympathetic. "You understand that _some_ disciplinary action had to be taken. You failed to report for duty to an official Garden event. Regulation states that all able members of SeeD attend the funeral of colleagues."

"I know that, but I…" Zell starts to say, and cuts himself off. Cid's tone isn't accusatory or scolding in the least, but Zell still feels compelled to excuse himself. But he doesn't have an excuse. He's been to at least a half dozen funerals in the last two and a half years and, yes, they're always hard, but Zell is a soldier. Or at least, he's supposed to be.

"I'm not without sympathy. I know that you lost friends."

"That's not an excuse," Zell cuts in, sounding harsh even to himself. Cid smiles a little.

"No, it's not. But given the circumstances, I didn't feel that a punishment was really appropriate."

Zell looks back down at the paper Cid had given him. Half a rank docked - it can hardly be called a punishment at all. Zell's had worse demerits for falling asleep in class as a cadet.

"I had to dock Squall, as well, but he was very understanding," the headmaster goes on. "Once he had explained the situation to me-"

"The situation?" Zell interrupts the older man again. Cid gives him a long look over the top of his gold-rim glasses.

"He told me that he was the one who gave you permission to forego attending the funeral. Is that not what happened?"

Zell feels stunned. "No, that's right, I just… didn't think he'd tell you that," he says dumbly, hoping the lie doesn't show on his face. The unexpected knowledge that Squall had vouched for him had him caught out. How uncharacteristically soft-hearted of the other man.

"He doesn't have the authority, of course, but I can't _really_ punish him for just trying to be nice. I hope this won't be an issue in the future, though."

"No, sir," Zell mumbles, and he still feels red-faced and ashamed as he leaves Cid's office when the headmaster dismisses him a minute later.

35.  
>"Everything checks out good," Dr. Kadowaki tells him at his check-up the next week. "Looks like you're in perfect health, Zell."<p>

Somehow Zell isn't relieved. Sure, his wounds have all healed; his daily routine has returned to an almost normal state. But he's more tired than he's ever been before.

"I had a check-up with Nida this morning, too," the doctor remarks while Zell's putting his clothes back on. "He was in good spirits. He's getting pretty good with that new arm of his. At least, he doesn't keep hitting himself on accident any more," she says with a chuckle.

Zell tries for a smile. He really doesn't want to hear about it. It only makes him remember dragging the pilot's half-mangled body through the sand, rolling him in the dirt to put out the fire. And the way Gina vomited all over herself as she wrapped her jacket around the stump where Nida's right arm had been.

"Now, Zell-" the doctor begins, and Zell knows what's coming. He only expected it sooner.

Dr. Kadowaki gives him a long, appraising sort of look. "The last time I offered you therapy, you refused and I didn't press you. I won't press you now, either. But I'm obliged to offer it, and I'd strongly suggest you have at least one session with myself or another doctor."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Zell says, trying to sound as polite as he can without giving her the impression that he's even remotely interested in taking her up on that offer. She nods, and to his relief, really looks as though she doesn't intend to pressure him.

"Alright. The offer is always out there, any time you need it." She finishes whatever she's documenting on his chart as he gets dressed, but before he can leave, she starts again, "Zell… You do need to talk about things, you know. You, more than most people I know, have a remarkable ability to cope with things, but you'll have to get it out eventually. That's all the nagging I'll do, I promise."

"It's okay," Zell says, smiling a little and not missing the doctor's expression of relief as he does. "I… want to talk about stuff. But not to you. Sorry."

"That's perfectly fine. That's good enough," she says, giving him an affectionate smile. "It's progress."

Zell thinks so too, recalling his conversation with Seifer, and the strange sense of reassurance he'd felt after all was said and done. Kadowaki shoos him out of her infirmary, much more cheerful than she's been after his previous check-ups, and Zell can't help but feel a little more light-hearted than when he went in.


	5. Un-detached

36.  
>Zell isn't even really awake when he rolls out of bed at the sound of a knock on his door. He shuffles across the room, shivering, as the knock repeats a little more urgently. It's chilly; he should have stayed in bed, underneath the comforters where it's warm and cozy. He can't imagine who would come calling at his door at half past six in the morning - except maybe Seifer, but he doesn't knock, and anyway he was already there.<p>

"Who is it?"

"Zell, it's Xu. I know it's super early and I'm sorry, I just really need a favor from you."

He opens the door to find her on the other side looking harried. "What's up?" Zell asks, rubbing his eyes.

"Can I borrow your library card? Only I left my syllabus in there last night and I've got class in fifteen minutes," she explains, sounding flustered. "I hate to bother you over something stupid like this but I couldn't get a hold of Rebekah-"

"It's fine," Zell says, holding up a hand. "I've got it right here, just give me a sec…"

He leaves Xu standing in the doorway as he goes to the desk and starts sifting through the piles of books and paperwork that he can never quite seem to get organized. He locates the key card and brings it back to Xu at the door. "Here you go," he says, handing it to her with a little smile.

She doesn't take it. She's staring at something inside his room, something past him. Probably at his bed, Zell thinks, where Seifer is still sleeping in plain view. Zell wonders if she got a good look at him, if she can tell who it is, or if she maybe thinks it's some random person. He spends less than a full moment wondering before he decides he doesn't care.

"I don't need that any time soon, so no rush getting it back to me," Zell says coolly, which brings Xu's attention back to him. She stares at him for a moment, looking befuddled. Zell stares back, a challenge in his refusal to comment. He's silently daring her to say something. He finds he's almost disappointed when she doesn't.

"Okay, well, thanks a lot," is all she says, giving him a cheerful smile as she pockets the key card. "I'll have it back to you later today, okay?" she calls, waving, and retreats from the door. Zell watches her trot away until she goes back around the corner. Then he shuts the door, and crawls back under the blankets next to Seifer to go back to sleep.

37.  
>There are a number of people up already when Zell heads into the cafeteria at the crack of dawn. Mostly instructors, and the few unlucky students who take Xu's ridiculously early tactics classes. Zell loads up his plate with fruit and some toast and goes to look for a table.<p>

Nearby, Quistis spots him and gives him a small wave from where she's sitting with Nida. Zell hesitates. He hasn't talked to Nida in a few weeks, hasn't seen the other man since he got back from his last trip to Esthar. He goes over to their table.

"Aren't you up early?" Quistis asks, slicing a banana into her oatmeal. Zell takes a seat next to her.

"I wish I wasn't. For some reason I don't sleep well when it starts getting cold out."

"Sounds like you need someone to keep your bed warm," Nida suggests with a cheeky smile. Quistis gives the pilot a very quelling look.

"You know Garden has policies against fraternization."

"I didn't say it had to be someone from Garden."

Quistis puckers, but doesn't deign to respond. Zell bites back a smile. Something about her tone makes him think that her and Nida have had this conversation before.

"How's your arm?" Zell asks the other man, giving Quistis a break and changing the subject for her.

"Oh, it's great," Nida says, flexing the creepy white metal fingers of his prosthetic arm. "I'm pretty much a pro with it now. Check this out," he says, and he picks up his fork and bends it in half between two fingers. Quistis makes a huffing sound at him.

"I told you if you do that again, I'm going to dock you points," she says exasperatedly.

Nida only shrugs, and Zell cracks a smile. "I'm going back to Esthar next week," Nida goes on, sounding excited. "The tech guys said that once I master the robot arm, they'll give me one that actually looks like a real arm. And Cid said I can start flying again after _that_."

"I'm glad it's working out," Zell says with sincerity. Nida nods, and continues to chatter animatedly as Zell listens, eating his toast. Quistis just rolls her eyes, but Zell's not fooled; he can see the smile she's trying to hide.

38.  
>"Zelly!"<p>

Zell hears the cry just seconds before Selphie leaps onto his back. "Selph, what are you doing?" he asks, as she giggles maniacally. "I thought you weren't coming til later this week."

"Yah, I took a few extra days off and caught an early train. And it's a good thing I did! Do you realize that no one around here has even decorated for Christmas?"

Zell can honestly say it's not something he's even thought about. Selphie, still perched on his back, waves a bundle of something green and smelly in front of his face.

"I'm gonna put mistletoe up _everywhere_. You lot need some holiday spirit! Now give me a kiss," she commands. Zell gives her a quick peck on the cheek, and she climbs down from his back.

"You're gonna come to the Christmas party, right?"

"Of course," Zell says - in the face of her blinding holiday cheer, he can't exactly say otherwise. Plus he hasn't actually seen Selphie in over two years, and he knows she had a hard time arranging to get away from Trabia Garden for a whole week. She beams up at him, her smile even brighter than the glaringly green Christmas sweater she's wearing.

"Alright, I'll see you later! I've got to go find out if this place has a stash of twinkle lights anywhere," she declares, jumping up on her tiptoes to give Zell a hug, and then skipping away.

Zell watches her go fondly. He'd forgotten how much Selphie's presence could force cheeriness on a person. This might be the first Christmas in the past few years he's not dreaded.

39.  
>"Where are you going?" Seifer asks when Zell pulls his duffel bag out of the closet.<p>

"Uh… I'm going to visit my Ma for a few days. She was upset when I didn't get any time off to see her for my birthday," Zell explains, shaking out the debris from the bottom of the bag. There's still stuff in there from his last trip - an empty water bottle, a few miscellaneous items in the corners of the bag.

Seifer flips the page in his magazine, managing to convey irritation with the almost-silent motion. Zell could almost laugh, but that would probably make Seifer mad - the other man's been touchy lately.

"It's only for three days. I'll be back on Monday," Zell says, reaching down into the corners of the bag to make sure he's got all the rubbish out. "Don't fret."

"Do I look like I'm fretting?" Seifer replies. "At least it'll be nice and peaceful while you're gone."

Zell resists the urge to point out that if Seifer is sick of his company, all he has to do is go back to his own room; the jibe's too easy. Besides, Seifer is clearly irritated - Zell can somehow tell. He'd like to lie to himself and pretend that he doesn't notice how clingy Seifer gets sometimes, but Zell's not exactly detached himself these days. He doesn't remember the last time he went three days without seeing Seifer.

Zell isn't stupid. He knows this thing, this relationship of theirs is getting weird. Or rather… it should be getting weird. Instead, it seems more normal to him with each passing day.

"Do you want to come with?" Zell asks on a sudden impulse - not seriously, but just for Seifer's reaction.

"Thanks but no thanks, I'm very busy," he says dryly, not even looking up from his magazine.

Now Zell does smile, but he turns back to the closet so that Seifer can't see.

40.  
>"Are you gonna make this a yearly tradition?" Zell asks when Seifer stumbles through the door well after midnight.<p>

"I told Quistis… if she's gonna make me go to that stupid party every year…"

"Yeah, getting drunk and making an ass of yourself is the way to show her," Zell says.

Seifer rubs his eyes, runs his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. "You're a little too smart-alecky for my tastes lately," he mutters, trying to remove his jacket.

"You don't like my attitude, go find somewhere else to sleep it off."

"You're positively cruel," Seifer says.

Zell grabs a pillow from the other side of the bed and throws it at the other man, who staggers. "You can sleep on the floor, too. I hope you wake up with an awful headache."

"You sound like you could use a drink, Dincht. Might loosen you the fuck up."

"I don't drink," Zell says shortly, reaching over to the bedside table to turn the light on - mostly for the sake of further irritating Seifer, who winces away from the light. "It makes me stupid."

"More stupid?"

"Why do I even put up with you?" Zell grumbles.

"Why do you put up with me? Why do _I_ put up with _you_?" Seifer retorts, throwing his jacket on the ground after he finally manages to divest himself of it. "The only fun thing you ever do is get angry and you don't even do that much anymore."

"Please, as if _you_ have any redeeming qualities at all."

"What are you talking about? I'm a catch," Seifer says, grinning cheekily.

"Well, that's obvious by your multitude of friends and admirers," Zell says snarkily.

Seifer laughs quietly, laying down on the floor and ignoring the pillow Zell threw. "Is it even necessary for me to say 'takes one to know one'?" he murmurs, pulling his discarded jacket over his head. "Turn out that light, would you?"

Zell thinks about it. He could argue - he probably should argue; reason tells him they'll have to have this conversation sooner or later; they can't just go on forever without defining this… whatever it is they have. It's not really a friendship, it's not even pleasant most of the time. It's more like a symbiosis than anything, which scares Zell. He's not blind to the fact that he's gotten used to Seifer's presence in his life. What he's afraid of is becoming dependent on it.

Then again, who cares? If Seifer doesn't, why should Zell?

"Sometime tonight would be great," Seifer adds grouchily from the floor.

"Enjoy your hangover," Zell says vindictively as he shuts out the light, and then goes back to sleep. 


	6. Ceremonies

41.  
>Rinoa spots him from the other side of the quad and makes a beeline for him before he can do more than smile and wave in her direction. It's rare to see her in Garden - it's been long enough that the grudge between her and Garden Administration has been mostly forgotten, but she does seem to be too busy these days taking the political scene in Timber by storm to visit very often.<p>

It's doing her some good, too, Zell thinks - she's positively glowing as she approaches him, beaming. "I've got something for you!" she announces, pulling it out of her handbag.

Zell takes the item and looks it over for a moment. It's a thick, pearly white envelope with a silver filigree design around the edges. "What is it?" he asks.

"It's a wedding invitation," Rinoa says.

"Oh," Zell replies. "Whose wedding?"

"Zell! Mine, of course!" she says, as if he's stupid for even asking.

"Sorry, I just-" he says, feeling nonplussed. "Congratulations. Of course. I didn't mean it like that, it's just, I hadn't heard-"

"Don't worry about it. We haven't… you know… announced or anything," Rinoa explains, looking a little sheepish. "Everything happened really suddenly, so a lot of people were surprised, I guess. Anyway… I know it's really short notice, but I hope you'll come. The ceremony's going to be really small, just some friends and family."

Zell assures her he'd love to go, and she trots away looking pleased. He waits until he gets home later that day to open the invitation, staring at the silver script for a while, not sure what to think. The date for the ceremony is the last weekend of September - barely three weeks away. Short notice, indeed.

"What's that?" Seifer asks, as Zell drops the envelope on his desk with the rest of his day's work.

"Nothing," Zell replies, burying it under a stack of folders.

42.  
>"Hey, you got Rinoa's invitation, right?" Quistis asks him, catching him as he exits the library. No prelude, no smalltalk - she and Zell have been friendlier lately, certainly, but he's still not used to her being so familiar, not after nearly two years of tense radio silence.<p>

"Yeah. You're going, right?"

"Yes," Quistis says, falling into step beside him as he heads toward the dorms. "Would you like to be my date?"

"Wh… what?" Zell replies, doing a mental double-take at her question. She gives him a strange, uncharacteristically desperate sort of look.

"Look, Nida's been pestering me to go with him, and I told him I can't because I already have a date. I figured it would be easy to find a date but it's surprisingly… not so," she grouches, looking miffed.

"So I'm, what, your last resort?"

"It's not like that," Quistis says, sighing. "You can tell me to piss off if you want, but… call it a favor?"

"I think you ought to go with Nida," Zell offers his opinion, although Quistis' expression and demeanor suggest she's not interested in what he thinks.

"Tsk," she says. "He'll think it's more than it is."

Zell studies her face for a moment as they turn down the corridor toward the dormitories. "You sure it's _not_'more than it is'?" he asks coolly. Quistis doesn't answer, but sighs again, an undercurrent of anger in the quiet sound. "I'll go with you, Quis, don't worry," he adds a moment later, before she can come back with something snappy.

"You understand it's just as friends, right?" Quistis says next, but Zell doesn't miss the lacing of gratitude in her tone, even if she doesn't voice it with words.

He gives her another long look. So they're friends again, are they? Zell doesn't know how long it's been since someone called him that - or, more worryingly, since he's called someone else that. "I guess I won't get my hopes up, then," he replies teasingly. She laughs, and slaps him lightly on the arm.

"I'd only break your heart, Zelly," she chirps, winking. Then she leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, and gives him a warm smile. "Thanks," she says, and then strolls away down the hall to the women's dorms.

"No prob," Zell says, feeling befuddled by the whole encounter. Every once in a while when he thought he had Quistis pretty well pegged, she went and surprised him by acting like a woman again. He'd probably never understand her.

43.  
>"If you say 'fat' one more time, Quis, I swear I'm going to lose it," Zell says warningly as she emerges from the dressing room again, back in the pink dress <em>again<em>.

"I never said I was fat. I said 'too fat for this gown'," she mutters, twisting her body to look in the triple-paneled mirror behind her. "There's a difference."

"No, there's not a difference, because both statements are insane."

Quistis frowns at him in the mirror, but doesn't respond. She at least seems to understand that she's pushing Zell's patience, even if she doesn't have any intention of bringing this three-hour dress shopping session to a close any time soon. "Tell me again why I'm here, instead of, I don't know, Rinoa or Xu or one of your _girl_friends," Zell sighs, flipping idly through one of the fishing magazines stacked on the table in the dressing room.

"Rinoa's way too busy with her own stuff. I wanted you because you'll give me an honest opinion. Xu would just tell me I look good in everything whether or not it's true."

"You _do_ look good in everything," Zell says, to which she responds with a grimace, still staring at her ass in the mirror. "Although I don't think pink's your color. I liked the black one you tried on earlier, the one with the swishy bit on top."

"Yeah, me too," Quistis says, looking wistfully over at the rack where the black dress is hanging with the fourteen others she's already tried on. "But I can't wear black to a wedding!"

"It comes in white, as well," the sales assistant offers unhelpfully. Quistis gives her a cold stare.

"That's _worse_!"

"Just wear your SeeD uniform," Zell says. "That's what I'm wearing."

"It's so plain… I want to look pretty," she remarks, climbing down from the mirror platform and heading back toward the dressing stall.

Zell swallows another sigh, discarding the magazine he's already read through twice. Quistis seems to be suffering from a raging streak of insecurity with regards to this wedding, but for what reason Zell can't fathom. She's more than pretty, she's gorgeous - and she should know it, too, with the hordes of lovesick students that follow her around Garden day and night. "Can you pass the black one back in?" she calls from behind the stall door.

"Of course," he says resignedly, and gets up to grab the dress.

44.  
>Zell, surprisingly, is having fun.<p>

It's not like he has anything against fun. He seems to recall that he used to love fun. But his life's not exactly full of it these days.

It's hard not to be affected by the frankly infectious joy and enthusiasm that a wedding brings on, however. The ceremony, just as Rinoa said, is small and intimate - everyone from the orphanage makes it, with a few other close friends from Garden, Rinoa's father and his new wife, and the President of Esthar with his daughter. Everyone is so obnoxiously happy that it's hard for Zell to resist joining in.

"Don't tell me you're not drinking," Quistis says to him, catching him late in the night. Zell usually avoids alcohol, but he wouldn't even bother to try and make excuses to not drink at a wedding.

"I had some champagne earlier," he says as she takes a seat beside him on the bench facing the sea. Behind them, Zell can faintly hear Selphie singing along to the music on the dance floor.

"I hope you're not thinking of winding down already," Quistis says teasingly. "Do you know how upset Rin will be if you try to leave early?"

"I wouldn't do that. I just needed a break," Zell explains, which is true. "I guess I don't have the energy I used to."

"Well, sure. I mean you're practically ancient, aren't you?" Quistis laughs, scuffling her feet in the sand. She kicks off her strappy high heel shoes and wriggles her toes into the sand. She's been dancing half the night; her hair is falling out of its curled updo and trailing over her shoulders. She went with the black gown in the end, and she looks stunning - not that Zell would tell her that, because she wouldn't believe him anyway.

"Hey, thanks for being my date," she says after a while, giving him a sincere smile. "It occurred to me that you might have wanted to bring someone else, and I kind of bullied you into it. So I'm really grateful."

"Honestly, Quis, there's no one I'd rather be here with than friends," Zell says, and he really means it, too - which is why, when Quistis doesn't immediately reply, but just stares at him for a long moment, he begins to feel awkward. He knows that look on her face; there's something she wants to say, but she's not going to say it.

"I notice Seifer didn't show up," is what she says instead, in an obviously forced change of subject.

"I doubt he was invited," Zell replies. Whether or not Seifer knows about the wedding Zell can't say; he didn't show the invitation to the other man and they don't exactly chit chat about their daily lives. "Anyway, why would he show up? When was the last time he even left Garden?"

He's trying to sound flip, but Quistis' expression is less amused than it is thoughtful. "Quistis," Zell says.

"What?"

"If there's something you want to _say_," he tells her. She shakes her head, not looking at him. Her reluctance to comment speaks for itself; Zell would have to be stupid to not know what this is about. "I knew Xu wasn't going to keep a secret," he says, mostly to himself. "I thought maybe she'd forgotten about it-"

"Zell, what do you expect? She was wigged out," Quistis says in defense of her friend. "She came bursting into my room at the crack of dawn to tell me that you… that… what she'd seen," she concludes lamely, starting to blush.

So she doesn't really know anything. Just whatever fantasy her and Xu cooked up after Xu saw Seifer in Zell's room.

"Quistis," he says again, calmer. She finally looks up at him. "That was months ago. Almost a whole year ago. Why are you bringing it up now?"

"I… I wasn't going to bring it up at all," she replies. "I mean, oh my _god_ did I want to, but Xu and I had discussed it and we decided it was none of our business and we were never going to bring it up."

"Then, I ask again, why are you bringing it up?" Zell repeats his question.

"Are you really sleeping with Seifer?" she blurts suddenly, looking embarrassed. Zell hesitates in answering only long enough to make sure nobody is approaching them, but the rest of the party seems to still be on the dance floor.

"Yeah," he says, truthfully.

Quistis takes a deep breath. Zell watches her short struggle with the panic she's obviously battling; after a minute, she overcomes it. "Okay," she says. Then, very abruptly, she gets up, grabbing her shoes from beneath the bench. "Well, like I said, it's none of my business, so I'll just-"

"Sit down," Zell commands, grabbing her hand before she can flee. "It's your business now, so you'd better deal with it," he adds, smiling to show her he's joking. She still looks extremely uneasy.

"Look, it's not my place to tell you who to see or whatever," Quistis begins, and Zell can sense a "but" on the horizon. She pauses a moment. "But," she goes on, "you know there are regulations and they're for a reason, and honestly Zell I just don't think it's a good idea. Seifer's bad news, he's still wanted in three countries for god's sake, and he's unstable…"

She trails off, evidently becoming aware of how sanctimonious she sounds. Zell digests this little speech for a minute or two without answering. Her assumptions are pretty far out there - and Zell, surprisingly, is not as offended by them as he might have expected. Her accusations, however, strike a nerve. "No," he says, keeping an even tone, "I think Seifer's probably the most stable person I know."

"What do you mean?"

"More than you or me, I'd guess," he adds, to Quistis' bafflement. "I mean, like, is he okay? Mentally? Definitely not. But he's got his shit together, it's under control." She only stares at him as he pauses, thinking of how to address the other half of her remarks. "Anyway, you, uh… I think you misunderstood the… situation."

She frowns at him. "Wh… in what way?"

_In every way,_ Zell thinks, but doesn't say. There's no need to antagonize her. "We're not, uh… that is, I'm not sleeping with Seifer. Not _sleeping_ with. Just… sleeping. Together," he says lamely.

Quistis continues to stare at him. "Say again?" she says carefully.

"It's like… how do I explain?" Zell asks himself in frustration, running his hands through his hair. "He's just… there. All the time. And… that's all it is."

"Um," she says. Rather than being assuaged by his explanation, she looks like she's starting to worry for his sanity. "So it's not… sexual?"

"No," Zell replies. "No. Not at all, no."

"Not at all? What do you mean… it's not physical at all?"

Zell has to think about it for a moment before saying, "well… no."

Quistis looks even more baffled, and strangely, Zell finds he understands the feeling. It has never occurred to him until just now that, rather than it being strange that he and Seifer might be involved, it might be _more_strange that they're _not_ involved, given the circumstances. More strange that they _don't_ even touch, and at least in Zell's case, don't ever even think about it. Now he can't help but wonder if it's something Seifer _does_think about.

"Can I be honest?" Quistis asks after spending some time thinking about it. "That's weird, Zell."

"I know it's weird. It's weird as hell. I'm not stupid," he says.

"I mean, if it was sexual, I could understand that. I could see that."

"You could?"

"Sure," she replies with a shrug. "You guys used to have this kind of… passion. I mean, I was always worried you were going to kill each other, but passion is passion. I could see how it might develop into… well, if it's not sexual, then I don't understand it at all," she confesses, giving Zell a sort of helpless look.

"You and me both, Quis," Zell says.

They sit for a long while without speaking again, watching the ocean. Zell's mind is suddenly overfilled with new thoughts and questions, but here, now, is definitely not the time to start trying to unravel them.

"So what are you going to do?" he asks Quistis eventually.

"I think I'll go back to the party," is her answer, and she gets up from her seat, smiling down at Zell. It's not the reply he was looking for - but it kind of is, at the same time. She grabs her shoes from the sand and heads back up the beach. "You'd better, too," she calls to him, "before Rinoa comes hunting you down!"

Since Zell can't think of any better way to distract himself from the new ideas rattling around his head than rejoining the party, he does just that.

The celebration doesn't start winding down until near dawn, when everyone is too drunk and tired to keep the party going. People start making their way slowly and carefully back to Garden, but Zell goes back to the beach. He's not yet ready to face the overdue introspection that returning to his dorm will bring.

He's not the only one, it seems, because someone plops down in the sand next to him. Looking up, he's surprised to find that it's Squall.

"The man of the hour," Zell says jokingly. He, like everyone else, is drunk, but it's not totally horrible.

"Who'd have thought that getting married could be so exhausting?" Squall says.

"If it were me, I'd just elope," Zell remarks. Squall looks over at him, something like amusement on his face.

"I guess we're alike, then," he says. "Rin and I eloped in August. We've been married for almost two months."

"Wow, really? Congrats."

"I wasn't interested in any of this wedding mess, but her father kind of insisted. Given the circumstances…" Squall says, mostly as if to himself. Zell doesn't say anything, just listens. Squall has never been a big talker, and he and Zell have never been all that close, but they're both pretty drunk, so maybe it doesn't matter. "She wanted the big wedding. Shut down the city, five hundred guests. But there wasn't time. I told her she can have a reception as big as she wants, when stuff can be planned."

Zell hesitates, chews on that bit of information. He doesn't know whether or not Squall will get pissed off if he tries to read into it; they're not really close friends. "So where's your lovely bride anyhow? I haven't seen her in a while."

"I think she went somewhere to puke," Squall says dozily.

Zell snorts, then laughs. "Maybe you should go find her,"

"I'm gonna," the other man says, getting stumblingly back to his feet. "I just wanted to say thanks to you for coming. Rinoa's really happy you came, too."

Zell's aware of that - the force and velocity with which she had leapt on him and plastered his face with kisses earlier in the night made it pretty clear. Squall wanders away again, leaving Zell to sit by himself on the beach, watching the horizon as the sun starts to creep up. Only when everyone else is gone and he can't avoid it any longer does he get up and make his way back to Garden.

45.  
>Seifer isn't there when Zell gets home.<p>

He's baffled. Seifer's _always_ there. Zell can't get rid of him. Then he shouldn't be feeling so disappointed, should he?

Despite knowing that Seifer's room is only three doors down the hall from his, Zell has never felt the least curiosity to go there. He's never had a reason to - Seifer has never been out of his periphery long enough for Zell to need to go looking for him.

He staggers down the hallway and knocks on Seifer's door. It should be open, he thinks, but it's not. A few moments later, the door opens, and Zell slips inside before Seifer can see who it is and refuse to let him in.

"What are you doing?" Seifer mutters, sounding sleepy. Zell goes past him into the room, stumbling over his feet. He wants to ask Seifer why he wasn't at home, but it occurs to him that "at home" is implying a lot more than Zell is comfortable with.

"You got a window in here, huh?" he remarks, looking around Seifer's place with a vague curiosity. "I don't have a window."

"What are you, drunk?" Seifer asks. Zell shrugs instead of answering, and then he crawls into Seifer's bed and snuggles down into the still-warm sheets. "Oh, for fuck's sake," Seifer grouches.

"Good night."

"It's morning," Seifer says, walking over to the bed and yanking the blanket away. "If you're gonna sleep here, at least get undressed. You're wearing your bloody boots in my bed, you know."

"_Fine_," Zell huffs. He sits up and starts to fumble with the buttons on his jacket, while Seifer looks on with an expression that's gone from annoyance to amusement. This is why Zell doesn't drink - he's aware that he's acting petulant, but for what reason he can't even say himself. He's just inexplicably irritated with Seifer at the moment.

"You're starting at the bottom," Seifer remarks after watching Zell struggle for a moment. He reaches out and loosens the fastener on the front of Zell's uniform. Zell contemplates slapping his hand away, but he's tired. "I thought you didn't drink," Seifer says. "Makes you stupid, right?"

"Was a wedding. You have to drink at a wedding," Zell mumbles.

"Well, you weren't exaggerating about the stupid part, anyway," is Seifer's response. His tone is amused, but kind of warm - maybe Zell's imagining it - affectionate. He starts working at Zell's buttons. When Zell's jacket and boots are gone, Seifer shoves him back down on the bed. "Budge over," he orders.

Zell shimmies to the far side of the bed so that Seifer can slide in next to him. If there's something he should be saying, Zell doesn't know what it is. He's never felt so at a loss before. "Go the fuck to sleep," Seifer tells him, pulling the covers up around him.

"Okay," Zell replies.


	7. Things Not Said

46.  
>The phone rings at seven-thirty in the morning. Rightly, Zell shouldn't even still be in bed - he has a class to prepare for this morning and who knows how long that'll take - but he is, so he reaches out to grab the phone while trying to expose himself as little as possible to the cold air outside the blankets.<p>

"Are you doing anything today?" It's Quistis, and she doesn't waste time getting to the point.

Zell doesn't answer immediately - it's a trick question. She knows what he'll be doing today. "Why do you ask?"

She explains, and then, in a tone that couldn't be more obviously trying to be peppy, she adds, "So, you don't mind coming with me, right? I mean, you were going anyway, weren't you?"

"Sure thing, Quis," Zell says, because it's not like he can tell her no. "What time shall I meet you? Eleven-thirty?"

"I've got class until twelve, so let's make it twelve-thirty. Then we can grab a late lunch in town on the way back, how's that sound?"

Zell agrees, and they chitchat about restaurants for a little while before Quistis lets him go. Her acting's gotten better - if Zell didn't know her so well, he could almost believe she's _not_ on the verge of a depressive breakdown today. And Zell can't really blame her. If staying in bed, unplugging the phone, and forgetting that there was a world outside his blankets was an option, he would gladly choose it. Instead, he hauls himself out of bed and gets ready to face the day.

Quistis meets him at the front gate at exactly 12:30, looking chic in all black, her face covered by a giant sunhat and dark glasses. Zell assumes it's because she's been crying again - not that she'd need to hide it from him if she did - but when they get in the car and she takes them off, her face is calm and composed, with not a hint of tears. So she's preparing for the return trip, Zell thinks.

They drive up into the hills behind Garden and through the little falling-down stone gate of the cemetery that's nestled into one of the valleys up there. Zell's been here more than a few times; three or four generations of Balamb's families are buried here. But the newer graves off in the back section of the cemetery, the ones with the SeeD logo carved on them, are where he and Quistis head. They both wander around for a bit, aimlessly - Zell passes a lot of familiar names. After a while, they meet in the back, in front of a gravestone so new the edges are still sharp.

Quistis kneels down, staring at it for a long time. "Hi, Neena," she says softly.

Zell kneels in the grass next to her, just waiting. She's not crying yet, but it'll come - that's what Zell really came for, anyway; he knew Quistis would need a shoulder. So he just listens to her for a while, talking to someone who's not there, and waits for it.

47.  
>"You want to go off active duty?" Cid repeats, as though he just wants to make sure he heard Zell correctly.<p>

Zell hopes this isn't going to be a trial - he doesn't feel like being interrogated, doesn't need his motives questioned. "I just… don't think I'm needed right now, honestly."

"That's probably true," the headmaster agrees. "We're short of instructors and long on SeeDs around here right now, and Garden's only getting more popular, I'm afraid."

The old man's tone is a little bitter, maybe - surely when he decided to build the Gardens, he didn't imagine that one day kids would be running toward the chance to throw their lives away for its cause. After a moment, it passes. "Are you thinking about teaching full-time? There are actually a number of classes that are opening up this winter and I'm having a bully of a time trying to find enough instructors to cover them all."

"I guess so," Zell says, lacking a proper reply. If he doesn't work full-time in some capacity, he can't stay at Garden, and he can't leave Garden… can he? Maybe? No, he can't. There are things here for him.

"I'm glad you've come to like teaching, Zell," Cid tells him, looking genuinely pleased to say it.

_I like it better than I like fighting,_ Zell doesn't say.

48.  
>The door to Dr. Kadowaki's office is shut, but Zell knocks anyway. It's around lunchtime, so he figures she's probably taking a nap, and he wouldn't bother her except for that she keeps the heavy medical supplies in a locked cabinet, and he needs more than gauze and bandages for his class today. He's surprised, however, when he opens the door and finds that she's not alone - she's sitting with Seifer, in fact, having what looks like a cup of tea.<p>

"Uh," Zell says, completely caught out by the scene in front of him - as if it's not normal to see Seifer in any place except for Zell's own dorm room. "Sorry, I didn't mean to… intrude."

"It's fine, Zell. What can I help you with?"

"I just wanted to borrow a few things for my class. Splints and stuff. I want to teach them how to set bones," he explains.

The doctor gives him an extremely wry look. "This teaching won't be involving you breaking any of your _own_bones or anything stupid like that, I trust?" When Zell shakes his head to deny that charge (he can't admit to her that she's actually sort of got him pegged,) she grabs a set of keys from her desk drawer and throws them over to him. "Help yourself," she says, "just make sure to inventory whatever you take."

Zell goes to the cabinet and starts to sift through the bins for what he needs. He's highly aware of the fact that Seifer is watching him, not with curiosity - not with any emotion, really; Seifer's got poker face down to an art. Zell can't help but wonder what he's doing here.

"I'm gonna take off," Seifer says after a quiet minute, getting up from his chair. Zell fidgets with some items inside the cabinet while the other man leaves, feeling somehow awkward. He'd obviously interrupted their conversation, and Zell finds, strangely, that he really wants to know what they were talking about.

"Something else I can help you with, Zell?" the doctor asks him a moment later, as he looks back over his shoulder at her, still fussing aimlessly with finger splints. Her tone is amused, but the question is really a warning - they both know full well that whatever her and Seifer were talking about, she probably can't tell Zell. Nor does she have any legitimate reason to - unless, of course, what they've talked about includes Seifer and Zell's strange, codependent relationship.

"Does Seifer come in here a lot?" Zell asks.

"A few times a month, maybe less," she answers. "Why do you ask?"

Zell only shrugs, grabbing an empty bin out of the cabinet and throwing some random items into it. He feels flustered; he's totally forgotten what he came in here for. Oh, yeah, splints. Kadowaki watches him with obvious amusement.

"Since we're on the subject, is there anything _you'd_ like to talk about, Zell?" is the question she throws at him next.

"Not particularly, no," he lies, and he shuts the cabinet doors and locks everything back up. "Anyway, thanks for the stuff. I'll bring back anything we don't use after class, okay?"

"Sure thing," the doc replies, taking the key from him, and tactfully pretending not to notice that he practically runs out of the infirmary.

49.  
>Zell, by nature, is not curious.<p>

Inquisitive, maybe. He likes to know things, to understand. He enjoys learning about everything, about anything. Curiosity is an entirely different beast. It picks at him from the inside, niggles its little claws into his head until he can't think about anything else but what the heck Seifer and Dr. Kadowaki were talking about.

"You seen my duffel bag?" Zell asks, trying to sort through the mess in his closet.

"It's under the bed," Seifer answers.

Zell goes to look, and sure enough, there it is. Seifer, who's laying on the bed playing a video game, says, "going somewhere?"

"Balamb," Zell says. "For my birthday."

"How long?"

"Few days." Zell shakes the bag out, thinking about saying what's on his mind. It's been weeks, and he still can't stop thinking about it. "Want to come with?"

"No thanks," Seifer replies without even pretending to think about it.

"You sure?"

The other man gives him a long look over the top of his video game. "Yeah, pretty sure," he says. "In case you forgot, chicken brain, I'm kind of a persona non grata around Balamb. And, you know, everywhere else."

Zell knows that, but he also knows that it's been almost four years, and people can't hold grudges forever. Even Zell didn't hold on to his for long - there was no point, he figured. "Just thought you might like to get out of this place for a while."

"Get out of Garden? Why would I want to do that? Isn't it obvious I just love it here?"

Seifer's tone is dripping with sarcasm, which makes Zell think. If he really didn't care, he'd just ignore Zell's remark - maybe it's Seifer who's holding on to grudges. "Who do you think you're fooling, Seifer?" he asks.

"What?" Seifer puts his game down to stare at Zell where he's kneeling next to the bed. Zell meets his gaze and holds it for a long minute. He wishes he wasn't so acutely aware of how close their faces are.

"Never mind," Zell says, taking his duffel bag and going back to the closet. "Just… it's an open invitation, okay?"

"If you're trying to be nice or something, quit it," Seifer snaps, and he gets up and leaves the room without another word, ire written all over his expression. Zell almost wants to laugh. Funnily enough, being nice is something he'd never considered.

50.  
>Zell enters the Administration Office without even knocking. It's early in the day, so most of the desks are empty, but Xu is there, and she looks curiously up at him.<p>

"Hey, is Quistis around?" he asks.

"What?" Xu looks baffled.

"I need to ask her about the field exam this year," Zell says. He's not sure if it's actually Quistis that's in charge of that, but he figures his best bet for getting taken off the preceptor list for the exam this year is to go through her. He tried her dorm and the cafeteria already and if Xu can't tell him where to find the blonde, he'll probably have to go down the classrooms looking for her, which is more work than he wants to do on his day off. But it's a better option than having to go out into the field with cadets.

"What are you talking about?" Xu says, frowning deeply at him.

"She's not here?"

"No, she's not here," Xu says, as though he should know that. She pushes her chair back from the desk like she's about to stand, but she doesn't. Just stares at him with a worrying look for a few moments. "Zell, you do know… I mean, when was the last time you and Quistis talked?" she asks next.

"I dunno," he admits, and all of a sudden, he can feel that something is wrong - Xu's tone and expression make that clear. "A few weeks ago, I guess?"

"Zell," she repeats, and pauses. She looks uncomfortable. "Didn't Quistis tell you? She left Garden in February. Almost six weeks ago."

"What do you mean, left?"

"She moved away. She's not here anymore."

Zell is at a loss for words. Xu's remarks don't register for a moment or two. It's not possible that it's been that long since he saw Quistis, is it? Sure, he's been busy, and she's _always_ so busy that it's not unusual for them to go a few weeks at a time without touching base. But that's not the point - why would she leave Garden without saying anything to him? Why would she leave at all?

He asks Xu that, and she bites her lip, as if she doesn't really want to say. "She kind of… had to," is her explanation, which is hardly enlightening. "Given the… circumstances…"

Zell says nothing. Now Xu stands up. "She really didn't say anything to you?" the brunette asks him, looking sad. "I mean, it wasn't exactly a last-minute thing. She said she wanted to tell people personally so I'd assumed she talked to you about it."

"No," Zell replies, feeling stupid. Xu only looks at him with pity, which doesn't help.

51.  
>"Did you know Quistis left Garden?"<p>

Zell's been thinking about it for days, and he can't understand. Not why she would have left - he understands that - but why she didn't tell him. He wonders how many people she _did_ tell.

Seifer, at whom the question is aimed, replies, "Yeah. I heard she got knocked up. You didn't know?"

"How do _you_ know?" Zell turns the question back on him.

"I was in the infirmary when she got the news," Seifer says, peeling the top layer of bread off his sandwich. He starts to pick the tomatoes off. "She had a total breakdown… it was hard to watch."

"When was that?"

Seifer thinks about it. "September, I think?"

If Zell was confused before, he's completely bewildered now. Something about the situation seems surreal. Seifer is more in the loop than him - how did that happen?

Seifer reassembles his sandwich, sans tomatoes, and starts to eat. Zell just stares at his own lunch, his thoughts whirling. He can't make sense of this. Of anything.

"So… you hang out in there a lot, huh?" he asks after a long stretch of silence. Seifer gives him a probing look.

"Once in a while, I guess," is his answer, not that it's helpful. After a minute, during which Zell stabs at his casserole with petulance while Seifer watches on in amusement, he decides to take pity and elaborate, "It's mandatory. I have to see the doc every other week for therapy. It was part of the agreement when I came back to Garden."

Huh. Zell never noticed that - and lately, he's been noticing a lot more than he used to. "That was, like, four years ago," he remarks.

"Yeah."

"Well, as long as you're not in there bothering Dr. K," Zell adds. "She's got enough to do without having to babysit you."

He's trying to bait Seifer; the ex-knight doesn't bite. Instead, he gathers his trash on his empty plate, and then stands up. Zell grits his teeth, inexplicably irritated. All Seifer has done for the past four years is refuse to engage with him; why now is it suddenly so bothersome?

"So what do you guys talk about, anyway?" He takes one last stab at goading Seifer into some kind of response before the other man leaves the lunch table. And, surprisingly, the question makes Seifer pause.

"Nightmares," he answers finally.

"You don't have nightmares."

"Sure I do," Seifer replies without missing a beat. He doesn't blink an eye at Zell's presumption, as if he's the expert on the state of Seifer's dreams - although he kind of is. Seifer grabs his plate and pushes his chair in, and says, "just quiet ones." Then he walks off, leaving Zell to ponder that.

52.  
>"Is it my imagination, or do I see you in here a lot lately, Zell?" Dr. Kadowaki asks him casually one day.<p>

Zell looks up from the paperwork he's been filing for her. "Well, I…" he starts to say.

"Don't get me wrong, it's great to have someone helping out around here," she adds.

"Sorry," Zell says, smiling a little. "I shouldn't be in here bothering you."

"You're not bothering me. Like I said, it's nice to have some help. I just wonder if _you_ could be doing something better with your time."

She's fishing. Zell shuffles his papers. "Not really," he says, continuing to file. "I seem to have a lot of free time lately." That's mainly because he has a great desire to avoid going back to his dorm, but he doesn't feel it's necessary to state it. The doc probably knows, anyway.

"Okay," she says, going back to her charting. "Well, if you ever feel like, you know, talking-"

"I don't," Zell says.

"Okay," she repeats, and they both continue to work in silence.

53.  
>Zell tries for weeks to work up the courage to try and call Quistis. He's more angry with her than he's been at all, in a long time - except maybe with himself lately. When he does finally make the call, she won't talk to him - which he should have expected. If it were him, he'd probably be too ashamed to face anyone.<p>

"She's… she's not available at the moment," Edea tells him on his third try, which is a sight better than the "she's avoiding you" that's implied. "Shall I leave her a message that you rang?"

"Don't bother," Zell replies, sounding bitter even to himself. "If she's too chicken to talk to me, fine. I'm wasting my time."

"Zell, I don't think-"

"Don't make excuses for her. When she grows up enough to talk to me, tell her she can call me anytime, okay?"

He hates the way his tone sounds so sharp, especially since Edea has never been anything but kind to him and everyone he knows. Taking Quistis in even though she already had an orphanage full of war kids to contend with is an act of kindness that Zell appreciates and is grateful for, even while he's aggravated with Quistis herself. She's acting like a child, Zell thinks - refusing to speak to him, running away to the Cape to hide.

"Cut her some slack," Irvine says the next time Zell calls down there - which makes Zell even more angry; Irvine flits in and out of all of their lives at his own fancy, and even _he_ is more involved with Quistis' life than Zell is. "It's not just you. She won't hardly talk to me, and she stays shut up in her room most of the time. I think she's horribly depressed."

Despite himself, Zell's anger softens a little and is replaced by pity. "I don't want to hear that," he says. "How's she dealing with the… the baby thing?"

"Come on, it's Quistis. I think it's the last thing she ever wanted," Irvine says. This hardly reassures Zell, who's feeling worse and worse about the situation as it goes on. "I think she'll get over it," the cowboy adds thoughtfully. "You should see the way she smiles at that little girl."

Zell pictures it in his head, and it buoys him a little. So he tries to keep it in mind over the weeks as Quistis continues to avoid him.

54.  
>Balamb is booming these days, due largely to Garden's presence on its outskirts. There are two other Gardens, of course, and Trabia and Galbadia both offer the SeeD field exam now, but Balamb Garden still remains the most popular - which makes Zell a little proud, and a little bitter at the same time. He'd be happier if there were less need for mercenaries four years after the end of the war.<p>

His hometown was always a big tourist destination, particularly in the summer, but the thing Zell loved about Balamb was that the residents never lost that small-town feeling - everyone was friends, everyone knew each other. And everyone knew Zell; he grew up on Balamb's streets, raised by the city. It's a little different these days. He tries to remember when going back to Balamb stopped feeling like going home.

"What would you like for supper, Zell?" his mum asks, beating her kitchen rug over the patio railing outside.

"Don't go to any trouble. I can't really stay that late, anyway," he replies, which earns him a quelling stare from her. He coughs as clouds of dust emerge from the rug she's whacking against the railing.

"What are you talking about? You never come to visit anymore, and you can't even stay?"

Her guilt trip gets him every time. He only came into town today to pick up some things from his bedroom, anyway; he got roped into helping her with the spring cleaning through some kind of trickery on her part. He visits as often as he can, but the truth is, teaching full-time keeps him busier than he'd have guessed it would.

"I have grading to do tonight," he tries to tell her, knowing it's probably a futile endeavor. "I'm already behind on my work. Anyway, I visited in March, so don't pull that 'you never visit me'-"

"That was two months ago," Ma says huffily, hanging the rug over the side of the patio with a few others. "You spend too much time cooped up in Garden. You should get out more, meet people-"

What she means is "meet girls"; Zell listens to her go on for a while without interrupting. Always the same thing. He'd like to explain to her how utterly unequipped to meet new people he really is, but she wouldn't understand. It's not that he's particularly uninterested in girls - he's not interested in people, in general, at all.

Well… with maybe one exception.

"I'll let you know when I've got a weekend free and we can have a proper dinner together," he tries to placate her. "You can invite the neighbors, too. The Banners, and the Grants, from down the street. How's that?"

She looks mollified by the proposal, which was Zell's aim, so he doesn't say anything else to spoil it. The Grants have a niece around Zell's age who will probably be in town for the summer, which is the only reason his mum gave in so easily, and Zell hates the fact that he had to sink to that just to end the conversation - but they finish up the chores without bringing the topic up again, so he's not too fussed about it.

55.  
>The graduation ball this year seems somehow more festive than usual - or maybe Zell's just more inclined to have fun than he has been in past years, although he never really <em>wants<em> to be there. Watching a new batch of kids get their uniforms each year is somehow depressing to him… possibly he's getting more cynical as he gets older.

The absence of Quistis and her trademark joy-neutralizing scowl makes a difference, as well. Xu has taken over charge of Garden Administration, and she at least seems to recognize that it is a party, something her predecessor never quite grasped. She also, Zell notices, doesn't insist that Seifer attend the ball, which Quistis always did. So when Zell gets home later in the night, it's to find the other man in a significantly better mood than previous years.

"How was the party?" Seifer asks, not sounding remotely interested.

"Same every year."

Seifer is laying on his stomach on the bed, reading a novel. Zell takes a moment to look at the other man, really actually look at him - despite the fact that Seifer is around constantly, it's not something Zell ever thinks to do. He's not much changed in the past few years - not physically, at least - a little thinner, maybe; the red slash that runs between his eyes has faded some, but is still prominent. But he's not at all the same man he was four years ago today - just by looking at him, that's obvious. What the change is, Zell can't really pinpoint.

"What are you staring at?" Seifer asks next.

"I just don't… understand you," Zell replies, which is not what he meant to say, _ever_, but is nevertheless true. Seifer rolls his eyes.

"Oh, god, what? What have I done now?" Seifer drawls.

"You haven't _done_ anything. You're _doing_ it," is Zell's retort - which makes even less sense to Seifer than it does to Zell himself, to judge by the other man's expression of disdain. "How come you're so freaking normal? Like, it hasn't been _that_ long. I still have nightmares about that place. Sometimes I think I'll go mad just with the effort of not thinking about it. How do you, like, live with that in your head? The memories of stuff you've seen, and… and… done?"

Seifer doesn't look at him like he's crazy, a small mercy. He replies, "I told you, I'm a good faker."

Zell wants to tell him he's not _that_ good. If he were better, Zell wouldn't get a chill sometimes when Seifer looks at him - wouldn't be afraid of the look in his eyes sometimes.

"Anyway, I don't remember most of it, so that helps," Seifer adds.

"What? What does that mean?"

Seifer gives him a wry look, as if to say "what do you think?" and then goes back to reading his book. Zell's throat feels stuck. Seifer's remark was so flip, but it holds so many unspoken explanations. Zell's not satisfied anymore with not caring - he wants to know what's going on in Seifer's head.

"You don't remember… what, anything? Like, from the war?" Zell asks.

Seifer shuts his book and sits up. "You ever been drunk, like, blackout drunk? You don't remember anything that happened, just bits and pieces."

Zell nods, even though he's honestly never experienced that. "Well, that's pretty much what it's like," Seifer goes on. "I went into the war with eighteen years of memories, and I came out of it with a handful of fragments. Does that explain it enough for you?"

"No," Zell replies, baffled, as Seifer gets up and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. It doesn't explain anything at all; if anything Zell is more confused than he's ever been. He wanders around the room for a minute or two, undressing haphazardly, his head in a whirl. When Seifer comes back out a minute later, Zell spins around to face him. "I don't understand at all-"

"Yeah? Newsflash, Dincht: I don't understand, either," Seifer cuts him off, his tone suddenly sharp. It takes Zell a few seconds to realize that Seifer is angry, because it's been a very long time since he saw the other man get angry - certainly longer than four years. "Do you know what it's like to be possessed by a sorceress? She crammed herself down into my mind and broke it up into a gajillion little tiny pieces. She got rid of anything she didn't need," Seifer continues, as Zell listens in stunned horror. "Memories. Feelings. Useless shit. She only left what she could use to steer me… to control me. I've spent the last four years trying to sweep up the pieces and believe me, she didn't leave much."

He goes to the closet and yanks a tee-shirt out of a drawer, and then begins to violently undress. Zell can't think of a thing to say - which is fine, because Seifer keeps going a few moments later, "you're asking how I function? How do I get by from day to day?" He jerks the shirt down over his head, but his tone has already lost its sharp edge. "Fuck if I know, Zell. It's a mystery to me how I'm even still alive. And trust me, there have been plenty of times where I wished I weren't."

He goes back to the bed, sweeps his book onto the floor, and then climbs in. "I'm going to sleep," he announces, huddled against the wall.

Zell could almost laugh. All that venom, yelling, drama, and he ends the scene by hiding under the covers like a child. It might even have been cute, but for the fact that Zell's skin is still crawling from that terrible revelation of Seifer's. Zell finishes dressing for bed, goes into the bathroom, brushes his teeth, washes his face, and stares at himself in the mirror for a long time, mulling over what Seifer told him.

It explains some things - not everything, but some things. No wonder Seifer's never open about anything, if he doesn't know enough about himself to be open with. Zell shuts off the lights, gets into bed, and lies awake for a while trying to imagine what that could be like.

"She left me you," Seifer says quietly in the dark, some time later.

"What?" Zell thought he really was asleep. He waits for a bit, but Seifer doesn't speak again for some time.

"In my head…" he begins, and trails off. Minutes pass before he continues. "Like I said, the only things she left were what she could use against me."

_And I'm one of those things?_ Zell asks himself, repeating the question in his head as the night continues to creep by. But he doesn't have the courage to say it out loud.


	8. Inches

56.

Zell, as it turns out, is no good at interrogation. So it's lucky that Seifer needs very little encouragement to tell him things. Sometimes Zell doesn't even have to ask a question; it's as if Seifer can sense it forming in his mind, and volunteers an explanation before he even has to voice it.

It's a little eerie - scary, even. But not as much as it would have been even a few months ago, before Zell started to have an idea of exactly what his role was in Seifer's life.

Even so, it always surprises Zell a little when Seifer asks _him_ questions - maybe because he seems to know mostly everything about Zell without ever having to ask. When he does make inquiries, they seem sort of random, disconnected - as if he's having a long train of thought in his head, and only speaking a small part of it out loud. "What was time compression like?" he asks one morning, early, sitting in the quiet and nearly-empty cafeteria eating breakfast. Then he takes a piece of toast and begins to spread jam on it, typically nonchalant, as though he didn't just throw the verbal equivalent of a u-turn into their conversation about books.

"If you don't remember that, I don't think I honestly want to tell you," Zell says truthfully. Seifer gives him a long stare.

"No, I mean… I know what it was like for me. What was it like for you?" he elaborates.

Zell's not sure how to answer that. He hasn't thought about it in years - not actively, anyway. It's always there, a little bit, in the back of his mind, in the dark of night.

"You know," Zell says vaguely, kind of hoping that Seifer doesn't really want to know. "You were there."

"It's not the same. It's different for everyone."

"What are you, the expert on time compression?" Zell replies, violently stabbing his egg, which oozes yellow onto his plate. His skin is crawling suddenly, and he really wants this conversation to end, so that he doesn't have to think about why it never occurred to him to wonder about that. But it makes sense. He has a faint memory of Quistis clinging to him, sobbing, describing her own personal hell to him. He was so desperate at the time to just forget about all of it that he never stopped to realize how different her experience was from his own.

"Whatever… you don't have to tell me," Seifer says, shrugging. Zell wishes he could be so casual. Seifer doesn't have a shred of curiosity in him. "I can pretty much guess, anyway."

"That's not really reassuring," Zell says coolly; Seifer knows him well enough to read in his tone that the topic is closed, and doesn't ask again.

57.

"Zelly, you're coming out with us tonight, right?" Selphie chirps, flitting into his dorm room like the concept of knocking has never even crossed her mind.

"Coming out where?"

"You know! We're going to that new club in town, that really swanky one that just opened on the beach," she explains, and Zell vaguely recalls that she mentioned it the last time she was in town, which was only a few weeks ago. Selphie spends a lot of time in Balamb these days, living vicariously through Squall and Rinoa's comfortably settled-down lifestyle and spoiling their son absolutely rotten as best she can. Zell's not complaining; having Selphie around keeps things cheerful, even if her energy is too much for him sometimes.

"I don't know…" he says doubtfully.

"Come _onnnn_. Xu and Nida both said they'll go and Squall and Rinoa got a babysitter for the evening and everything. And you said you'd go. I never forget, you know."

From behind him, where Seifer is lounging on the sofa with his video game, Zell hears a quiet snort of laughter. "I don't think I said that, but…" Zell says. "Anyway, it's not really my style."

"You can bring Seifer with if you want," Selphie says with a shrug. "Probably no one will care…"

"Nobody's _bringing_ me anywhere, thank you very much."

The fact that she just made that assumption says a lot about how people must perceive his and Seifer's relationship, Zell thinks. Which is a little bit of a surprise, because most people around Garden don't ever seem to take any notice of Seifer or his almost constant presence at Zell's side at all. Seifer repels attention like water to a duck. Zell is never sure from one day to the next whether or not that's intentional - it's a talent Zell wouldn't mind learning himself.

"I'll think about it," Zell says to Selphie, which is definitely a "no" but as polite of one as he can manage. She pouts, and gives him a little punch on the shoulder.

"You are such a bore these days," she declares, before flouncing off. She's absolutely right, not that Zell really cares.

58.

Selphie really can hold a grudge. She snubs him for weeks after he blows off her big night out. Zell doesn't worry himself over it too much; she'll get over it, and move her attention to the next person who inevitably offends her in some way.

Seifer, for some reason, thinks it's hilarious. "You've got no luck with women, do you?" he says, chuckling, one day as Selphie marches right past them, deliberately not looking in Zell's direction.

"Yeah, and who are you to talk?"

"I mean, Quistis moved to the other side of the world to get away from you. Selphie's clearly determined to never speak to you again. Make sure you insult Rinoa the next time you see her; you want to go for the trifecta."

Zell doesn't answer; the jab about Quistis kind of smarts. They've had a few tense phone calls since she left, but he hasn't actually seen her in eight, almost nine months. Zell can't help but think that if her refusal to come back to Balamb really didn't have anything to do with him, like Quistis claims, then she wouldn't sound like she wants to cry every time they talk.

"She's right about you, you know," Seifer says another time.

"What? Who?"

"Selphie. She said you're a bore."

"So? Maybe I want to be a bore," Zell says sharply, marking the essay he's grading with a little too much force. "Maybe I'm not interested at all in being exciting. Maybe I like a quiet life."

"Do you even remember what you used to be like?" Seifer drawls, in an unusually grating tone of voice - it's like he's _trying_ to rile Zell up. "You and her would have made a perfect match. Both obnoxious to the point of infuriating."

"It's weird that you remember so much about me," Zell mutters, trying to concentrate on his work. Trying _not_to think about how much of the space in Seifer's head is filled up with him - thoughts, memories of him where other things ought to be. If Zell's got the right idea, there's not much else in Seifer's head these days. And that seems wrong, so wrong, really, terribly wrong.

Well, it should be. But it's not.

59.

Sometimes it really hits Zell unexpectedly how _weird_ he is.

For example, he never really thinks about the fact that he's still a virgin at 21 years old. Not that he thinks being one is something particularly weird - but the fact that it never really crosses his mind is maybe a little weird. It's not a concern, not an issue. Just a thought that passes through his head once in a while and is easily dismissed.

"What are you doing?" Seifer asks, watching Zell dismantle his wardrobe for the third time in search of that horrible blue jumper his Ma gave him for Christmas last year. Zell grabs his hair in frustration, which fuels Seifer's amusement.

"Have you seen that sweater Ma gave me last year? That really ugly one with the monogram on it," Zell explains, kicking at some piles of clothes with his foot. Seifer shrugs. "You know. It's, like, bright blue and it's got these fancy letters on the pocket and it's absolutely wretched. You know where everything is, you must have seen it."

"If you own something like that, I've never seen it," Seifer tells him.

"It's got to be in here. I know it is. I shoved it in a drawer as soon as I got back last time and I never even looked at it since then. It can't have gone anywhere."

"If it's so ugly, why do you care?"

"I promised Ma I'd wear it for her Christmas photo this year," Zell says, sighing in resignation. Ma was usually so good at picking out gifts for him. Why she thought he'd like that gross violent blue cable-knit disaster was beyond him. "For heaven's sake, Zell, you're an instructor now! You can't go around in tee-shirts and jeans; no one will respect you," she had cooed, fussing with the collar of the nice button-down shirt he had deigned to wear for her Christmas dinner. What she failed to grasp was that most of his teaching involved wrestling with teenagers in the dirt and mud, and occasionally in the sand, when they could get out of Garden for class.

"I'll help you look," Seifer says, and all of a sudden, he's standing right next to Zell, opening drawers. And all of a sudden, all Zell is aware of is how close Seifer is to him. Just inches away. Zell can almost feel the heat from his body. And then the question of _why_ am _I still a virgin?_ floats across his mind again, unbidden.

Why those two trains of thought are connected, Zell doesn't know. It probably has something to do with those stupid ideas that Quistis put into his head when they had that conversation at the wedding. And the fact that she was right about it being weird that their relationship isn't physical. It isn't just not physical; it's completely the _opposite_ of physical. Seifer never touches him, not ever, not for a second. Zell can think of _maybe_ a dozen times in the last few years where maybe their shoulders brushed in a crowded hallway, or their hands nudged each other at night, in bed, while one or the other of them was failing to sleep. It's not like he wants Seifer to start touching him, or anything. But the total absence of it is steadily turning into a void that Zell can't stop noticing.

"You should come with," Zell says as he starts picking up and re-organizing the clothes he's scattered all over the closet floor.

"What, to Balamb? No thanks."

"What've you got against Balamb?"

"It's what Balamb's got against me," Seifer says, folding a tee-shirt.

Zell doesn't push it. He always asks, every time he goes into town for more than a day, but honestly he doesn't expect Seifer to ever accept the offer. And Zell doesn't really know why he wants Seifer to. It would just cause confusion for everyone involved. But spending even a couple of days apart from Seifer is somehow uncomfortable, and just the awareness of that makes Zell uneasy.

It's just another passing thought, though. Zell is happy to let it pass right on by and sink back into the comfort of their, yes, weird, but ultimately easy and unspoken… whatever it is.

"Didn't Rinoa take a box of your old crap to the shelter in town a few months ago?" Seifer asks casually.

"Shit, I think you're right," Zell sighs, and Seifer laughs.

60.

Zell feels like an idiot.

"How come I never knew your birthday was at Christmas?" he asks Seifer, trying not to sound accusing. But he feels somehow gipped, having spent now four Christmases with Seifer without there ever being any mention of his birthday being only a few days before. Not that Seifer ever goes around divulging details about himself without Zell asking, and it never occurred to him to wonder when the other man's birthday was.

Seifer gives him a look that suggests he's seriously trying not to roll his eyes. "If you're trying to take inventory of all the things you don't know, Dincht, there's not enough time in this life."

Zell doesn't even know why it bothers him. It's not as if Seifer acknowledges Zell's birthday, or anything. It just seems like the kind of thing he should have known. If Selphie hadn't come round earlier to give Zell his own early birthday gift (a handmade certificate for an entire day of "Quality Selphie BFF Time!", whatever that meant) and ended up staying for a grueling two-hour-long conversation covering a range of topics from babies to birthday parties, he might never have stumbled onto the information.

"Look, it's really not important," Seifer says after a while, when Zell's pique refuses to go away. "It's not anything to celebrate. It's just the day I was born. Considering how many people probably wish I never had been, maybe it's better if you don't make a big deal out of it."

"You shouldn't say that," Zell tells him, his anger deflating.

"It's true. I'm not stupid enough to think that anyone around here likes me," is Seifer's response. His tone is cool; he doesn't even look up from his video game to observe this bit of wry cynicism.

"I do," Zell says defiantly, mainly to be contrary. It's sort of true, anyway. He doesn't really _dis_like Seifer.

"Yeah, well," Seifer replies, shrugging, without even a double take at Zell's admission, "you're one person."

"You really can be an asshole, you know?"

"It's a gift," Seifer says as Zell storms out of the room in a huff.

Seifer surprises him a few days later, however, by voluntarily bringing the topic back up. "So when are you heading into town?" he asks, joining Zell at his lunch table.

"Weekend after next. I got a four-day weekend," Zell tells him.

"Can I come?"

Zell almost chokes on his chicken salad. "What? You want to come to Balamb with me?"

"If it's still an open invitation," Seifer replies.

"Sure. Yeah. I'll let Ma know you're coming with," Zell says, feeling baffled. Why the sudden change of mind? Whatever the reason, it's not to be found in Seifer's expression, which is as nonchalant as ever. But Zell could swear he's actually pleased that he got an okay - it's not on his face, but rather… in his air, maybe? Zell doesn't know how to explain it, but he's pretty sure he's right.

"Cool," Seifer says. "Happy birthday." 


	9. Realities

I want to say thanks to rikkukirst and pinkperson for your reviews! I honestly mean to go and reply to every review, but I've somehow failed to keep up with it on this fic. Thanks, as well, to everyone who's reading, even if you don't comment! I really didn't expect anyone to be much interested in this story.

This chapter is extra-long and chock full of things and stuff, so enjoy!

* * *

><p>61.<p>

"Quistis called for you," Seifer announces when Zell gets home.

"What? When?"

Seifer consults his watch. "'Bout twenty minutes ago," he says, bent over a stack of books on the floor. More research. He must be fairly an expert in everything by now, with all the research Cid and Rinoa have scrounged up for him over the years. But it's not like they can let him do anything else.

It's kind of late, so Zell decides he'll phone back in the morning. He and Quistis have fallen into a routine; one or two phone calls a week, some stunted smalltalk, never much news on either end. It's still a little awkward, mostly because Quistis still seems like she's ashamed of how she acted, although Zell's been over it for a while. But they're slowly getting back to familiar.

"How's Fiona?" Zell asks her, after they've gotten through the usual pleasantries.

"Sick again," she replies, sounding exasperated. "It's this wretched weather down here; it's always so dank and cold. It's even making _me_ sick. I've honestly never missed Balamb so much," she admits.

_Then come back,_ Zell thinks, but he can't say it. "Sorry to hear that," he says instead.

"How's Seifer?"

"Fine, I guess. Same as ever."

"Really?" She sounds surprised to hear that.

"Yeah, why?"

"No reason. I just… guess I don't know what that really means," she says. She pauses. Zell doesn't reply. She has more to say, he can feel it. "I mean, what's business as usual for the two of you? How do you define normal?"

"Just… normal," Zell says. He wishes he could convey a shrug over the phone, because he just doesn't have the words to explain. "Are you thinking about… what we talked about at Squall's wedding?"

"Well, a little," she confesses.

Zell has to think for a few moments before he can think of how to say what he wants to tell her. Or if he wants to tell her at all. Quistis is already the closest thing he has to a confidante. He doesn't really tell Seifer things, but he doesn't have to; Seifer just seems to always _know_.

"Things have changed," he finally says, and he hears a sharp little gasp on the other end of the line. "Just… not the things you're thinking."

"I don't understand."

"I don't want to talk about it right now." _Or ever,_ Zell thinks. "Can we do this another time?"

He can feel her disappointment from halfway across the world, but she doesn't press him. "You should come to visit," she suggests.

"I wish I had the time," Zell sighs.

"I really want you to meet Fiona. Rinoa and Luka and Selphie all came down for her first birthday in April," Quistis says, and she's probably honestly not trying to make him feel guilty, but he does anyway. "I really miss you too, Zell."

"Maybe this summer," Zell says. "It's just, it's the end of semester now and I've never been busier… but I usually have some free time in summer."

"You can fly down with Nida. He visits a lot," Quistis remarks.

Zell almost laughs. Her tone is calculated to make him want to read into that, to inquire - so then she can have an excuse to inquire into his own private affairs. He doesn't take the bait. "I'll make sure to ask him, then," he says coolly.

There's another pause from her end, and this time, it's her pique that Zell can feel coming through the line. Still, she doesn't push the subject. They both have things to talk about, but they both can wait - summer is just six weeks away, after all. They chitchat for a little while longer, and Zell leaves her with a promise to book a flight as soon as finals are over, which soothes her irritation a little. Then he ends the call, and sits there for a long time trying to figure out how in hell he's ever going to manage to explain his life to her in a way that makes any kind of sense, when he can't even make any sense out of it himself.

62.

There are certainly a lot more people around Garden these days than there were when Zell grew up there. Seems like SeeD is still one of the most highly-sought careers, so the halls and classrooms are always filled with cadets, teenagers, and graduate SeeDs furthering their education. Babies, however, are a pretty rare sight around Garden. In fact, Zell would wager that Luka is the first one to set foot within its corridors.

"Heeeeey, it's uncle Zelly!" Selphie squeals as Zell and Seifer enter the Quad, where she's rolling around on the floor with the toddler, clearly being bested by him in a contest of strength. "Please tell me Rinoa sent you down here to help me babysit! This little guy's got too much energy even for me to handle!"

"I was looking for Rinoa, actually. She's not around?" Zell asks.

"Her and Squall went on a date. And dumped their demon spawn with me for the night. Yeeee!" she squeals as Luka takes a fistful of her hair and starts to chew on it. Zell watches on with no intention of jumping in to her rescue - Selphie might make a fuss, but she leaps on every chance to dote on Squall and Rinoa's son, so Zell figures she's only griping for the sake of griping. So, instead of offering his assistance with the little menace, Zell and Seifer go back to their usual table in the corner and set up shop - Seifer with his books, Zell with term papers to grade. The presence of a drooling toddler seems to have cleared out the Quad, so it's actually kind of peaceful, aside from the occasional shrieking and giggling from the pair of children cavorting on the floor nearby.

Eventually, Selphie runs out the little boy's seemingly boundless energy, and the both of them fall asleep on one of the couches. Zell shakes his head, watching them. What it is about babies that makes people so happy, he doesn't understand. "Selphie's really good with kids," he remarks, breaking the silence that so far has only been disturbed by the sounds of pages flipping and Zell's pen scratching endless red circles.

"She's overcompensating," Seifer says in reply.

"What do you mean by that?"

Seifer looks up from the page he's been looking at, but not reading, for the last fifteen minutes. His expression is wry. "How do you go through life being so totally blind to everything around you?"

Zell is too taken aback by this left-field comment to come up with a properly offended response. Seifer goes on, with maybe a touch of bitterness, "you live your life inside this little bubble, and you never even think about sticking your nose out of it. The only time you even think about anyone else is when they come wandering inside."

"What are you saying, I'm self-centered?" Where the hell is this coming from? Zell feels kind of angry already.

"She tries too hard," Seifer replies, talking about Selphie again. "She's a good pretender, though. But you can't get it back. You know that, right?"

Zell has an eerie feeling that Seifer's not really talking to him, but neither does he seem to be talking to himself. "Are you okay?" Zell asks warily, because it's not often that Seifer gets caught up in his own thoughts to the point of distraction; he's always aware, maybe strangely so, of what's going on around him. That, maybe, is where Zell and Seifer differ the most, Zell realizes.

"The stuff that's lost, it doesn't come back," Seifer says, rubbing his eyes, like he's tired. "I should say, what's _stolen_."

"Stolen?"

"Taken. All sorceresses do is take. Whatever they want, whatever's useful to them. And leave the rest," Seifer mutters. "You know. She took something from all of us. You, me, Tilmett." He's staring at Selphie again, curled up on the small Quad couch with Luka in her arms. "She tries really hard to get it back. But it doesn't come back. You were smarter; you never even bothered to try."

"Dude, pull yourself together. You're scaring me."

"This shit is getting to me," Seifer announces, slamming his dusty old library book shut. He gets up from the table and leaves without another word, clutching his head, like it hurts. Zell is torn over whether or not he should follow. He'd like to know what the hell Seifer thought he was talking about, but his presence isn't likely to be helpful, so he decides against pursuing the other man. He remembers Seifer once telling him that he knew what it was like to be constantly at war with himself; sometimes Zell forgets just how much Seifer _is_fighting incessantly against himself, his own unreliable mind, the voids in his memory. He's so good at appearing entirely normal that sometimes Zell fools himself into thinking Seifer _is_ normal.

When it starts getting late, he packs up his things and Seifer's books, and goes to gently wake Selphie up so that she can carry Luka off to bed. He walks her back toward Squall's dorm with the infant in tow, and thinks about what Seifer said. It's true that Zell never _has_ really thought about the others, what the war cost them - maybe he didn't want to. On one hand, Selphie seems just as cheerful and exuberant as she was the day they met - but Seifer does see things, and as Zell watches her rocking someone else's child in her arms, cooing softly to Luka as he begins to stir, he starts to see it, too. He's not so thick that he thinks Seifer meant Selphie _literally_ lost a child - but she lost something, and that should have been obvious to Zell ages ago.

Seifer is laying on the bed in the dark when Zell gets back to the room. "I brought your books back," he says, setting everything on the desk, but he doesn't turn the light on. He's beginning to think that all this research Seifer gets into - that which is assigned by Cid and that which he undertakes himself - isn't doing him any good. He's been through every book Garden's abundant shelves offer on the subjects of GFs, sorceresses, time compression, and memory loss, and as far as Zell knows, hasn't yet discovered a single bit of information useful to his particular situation. Zell wants to tell him to give it up, but it's not really his place.

"Did I weird you out back there?" Seifer asks, his voice muffled under the pillow he's got clutched over his face.

"You usually weird me out about six times in the course of a normal day, so don't sweat it," Zell answers, an unspoken acceptance of the unspoken apology Seifer made. He unpacks his things quietly, and then gets ready for bed.

63.

It's a beautiful day; the sky is a clear jewel-blue above Zell's head as he stares up out the open top of the Garden issue rental truck. He could just do this all day, cruise around the rolling hills outside of Balamb, feeling the warm breeze, scented with grass and ocean. But they're expected at Ma's by lunchtime.

They get into town around eleven, and Zell lets himself into the house, with Seifer close behind. He's amazed at how easy it is to have Seifer here - but, of course, he should have guessed that Seifer would slip unobtrusively into his life here in Balamb the same way he did in every other aspect of Zell's life. Ma didn't even blink an eye when Zell brought the other man here for his birthday in March - whether or not she recognized him as the same man who had once held her and all her neighbors under siege was unclear, but either way she evidently didn't care. She was happy to fuss over Seifer as much as she fussed over Zell, which makes him wonder just how lonely she's really been here by herself in all the years since he moved away.

"I grabbed your bag, too," Seifer says, entering the kitchen just behind Zell with two duffel bags in his arms.

"Ah, thanks. Ma? You here?" Zell calls out, peeking his head into the living room. She had said to come by lunchtime, so Zell figured she'd be waiting for them with heaps of food on the table, like always. But the house is quiet.

"Maybe she went out."

"Nah, her shopping bag's there," Zell says, pointing to the tote bag on the hook by the door, next to a set of keys. "I bet she fell asleep. Do you wanna take all that stuff up to my room?"

Seifer heads up the stairs to Zell's bedroom, and Zell goes downstairs to check Ma's room. Of course, Seifer will be sleeping on the sofa bed, like he did last time, which will save Zell the stress of trying to figure out how he's going to explain to his _mum_ of all people why they're sharing a bed. Even if the reason isn't at all what people probably think. Besides, his little twin bed is a bit too small for them to be trying to squeeze into together.

He knocks on the door at the bottom of the stairs, and then opens it. "Hey, Ma, we're here. You forget we were coming, or what?" he asks, peeking his head inside. She's on the bed, napping on top of the covers, and doesn't reply to Zell's question. He knocks on the door again, a little louder.

"We let ourselves in," Zell says, although that much is obvious. "If you want to sleep, that's fine; we'll grab lunch in town or something. I just wanted to let you know we arrived."

She doesn't stir. Zell pauses for a moment. She's not usually such a heavy sleeper. "Alright, well… we'll head into town and be back in, I dunno, an hour. Does that work for you, Ma?"

He steps into the room.

"Ma?"

Seifer is waiting in the kitchen when Zell comes back up the stairs. "I just threw everything on your bed, hope that's fine," he says, turning to look at Zell. "Is she sleeping?"

"No," Zell says.

64.

Zell should be a pro at funerals by now. He's been to enough of them to know the procedure. Things to say, things not to say. How to greet people and thank them for coming. How to not look like you're falling apart as you listen to an endless stream of visitors, friends, and neighbors tell you how very sorry they are for your loss.

He escapes after a while, ducking out of the stuffy funeral home and crossing the street to the park. The slides and swingsets he used to spend his days scaling like a mountaineer are still there, although they're pretty old and creaky now, and kids don't play on them much. He sits in the grass by some hedges and watches people filing in and out of the building across the street.

After a while, Quistis emerges, and wanders over to join him. "Hi," she says softly, and her mouth gives a sort of twitch that's probably supposed to be an attempt at a smile. "Can I sit? Or… do you want to be alone?"

"Go ahead," Zell says, nodding. She settles down in the grass beside him. He wants to be away from people, but not necessarily alone. Quistis has been extremely helpful since she got into town four days ago, helping him arrange and plan things, and he's more grateful for her presence than he can express with words. But then, they seem to have come to a point where some things can be expressed without words.

"I swear," he murmurs, staring up at the glazed blue of the sky, "the next time I'm forced to attend a funeral, it had better be my own."

"Oh, Zell, don't say that," Quistis admonishes him, shaking her head. "I know what you meant, but… don't say that."

"I just… thought I'd be done with them by now, you know?"

Quistis reaches over and places her hand gently on the back of his head, and he slowly leans down until his head is resting in her lap, while she runs her fingers idly through his hair. He lays like that for a long time, watching the clouds drift across the sky. "What are you doing tonight?" Quistis asks him after a while.

"I dunno," he says, truthfully. Now that the funeral is over and he doesn't have a million thoughts and worries to keep him occupied at every hour of the day, the idea of facing a night alone with his own mind seems daunting. Maybe that's the real benefit of a funeral - to delay the shock for a few days. Or maybe that makes it worse. "I still have to grade all my finals. They're a week late already."

"I'm sure Cid understands," Quistis tells him, but Zell would rather not hear it. He'd rather have the promise of some work to do when he gets back to Garden later, something to keep him busy. "Is there anything I can do? I'm sure you're not ready to tackle the house yet, but have you thought about what you're going to do with it?"

"Dunno," Zell says again. "Sell it, I guess." It's a lie - he knows exactly what he's going to do, and Quistis probably won't much like it, so he doesn't tell her.

"I'll be in town for a while. I'll stay as long as you need me," Quistis says, brushing his hair back from his face softly. "I've really missed being here. I'm ashamed that it took _this_ to get me to come back."

"Quis, don't. Please, just…" He sighs. "Save the guilt for later, okay? When I have enough energy to tell you how stupid you really are."

This draws a little smile out of her. "So, where's Seifer got to? I haven't seen much of him since this morning."

"Still inside, I imagine," Zell says, meaning the reception. "Dealing with people, so I don't have to."

"You two are so funny," Quistis remarks, and she gives a little laugh - and not the strained, forced kind she does when she's nervous or stressed, but a real one. "I can't tell if you like each other or hate each other."

"Neither," Zell mutters, and hopes that's enough of an answer for her, because he's not up to this conversation right now. He's finally figured out what Seifer is - his rock, and the fact that it's so cheesy that Zell wants to slap himself for even thinking it doesn't make it untrue. But Seifer has been unmoveably there for Zell for years now, through all kind of shit, and through this last week; when Zell was sure Seifer would back off and let him handle all the arrangements himself, instead Seifer seemed eager to do whatever he could to help, despite the fact that he barely even knew Zell's Ma. Zell is hugely thankful and, dare he say, _touched_ - between Quistis and Seifer, he's never felt so loved before.

"Do you want to go back in?" he asks her after a bit.

"Do you?"

"No."

"I'm fine with staying here," Quistis says, and they continue to sit there until the sky fades from blue to red to black.

65.

"Are you quite sure about this, Zell?" Cid asks him only one time.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

Zell has been in the headmaster's office a fair few times over the years, but he's never realized how small it actually is. Or Cid. At least, it seems that way suddenly. It could be the air of defeat in the old man's expression.

"I guess there's some part of me that was expecting this," Cid says with a heavy sigh. He lays Zell's resignation form down on his desk, and stares at the paper for a moment, like he wishes it would just vanish. "I'm very sorry to see you go, Zell. I don't know what we'll do around here without you."

"If it's about the defense classes, I'm okay to keep doing them until you find someone who can take over. I know it's hard to find a good combat specialist-"

"You misunderstood me," Cid interrupts, with a sad sort of smile on his face. "Not that I'm saying that your expertise isn't valuable to this institution. What I meant was that you will be missed from here. By your students and your colleagues, and myself, as well."

Zell would feel moved by this sentiment, if he had the strength to feel much of anything. The grief has settled over his life like a dark cloud for the past week, silently and heavily muting everything else.

"I feel like a complete failure sometimes, Zell," the headmaster remarks after a moment, heaving a sigh. "I meant to protect you - all of you. I never intended to expose you to the pain and suffering you've been through." He pauses thoughtfully. Zell says nothing. "Ah, well, I don't imagine you're interested in the failings of an old man. But I am sorry, Zell. For everything that's happened."

"Thanks," Zell says, because that seems like the right thing to say, even though he's honestly past caring whether or not Cid feels remorse for the path he led his orphans down. There's no changing it, so there's no use in dwelling on it.

"You're welcome here any time, Zell, I hope you know," Cid says, standing up. He extends a hand and Zell takes it, and they shake. "I hope you'll drop by now and then. The both of you. Garden will always be open as a home to you."

"Thank you," Zell repeats, and this time, he means it. He leaves Cid's office feeling a little buoyed - more lighthearted for the burden of being a SeeD removed from his shoulders; a bit frightened at the freedom now looming over him. What he's going to do with his life now, he has no idea. There's no reason to stay at Garden; there hasn't been for a long time - but that doesn't mean he has any idea of what direction to turn next.

He's making his way slowly down the corridor, heading home at a leisurely pace, when he thinks back over his conversation with the headmaster, and Cid's words actually hit him.

_The both of you._

66.

Zell bursts though the door into Seifer's room, seething.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he snarls. Seifer looks curiously up from the box in front of him, into which he's stacking books.

"Sorry?"

"You're leaving Garden?" Zell says, marching over to where Seifer is standing and snatching the books out of his hands, throwing them to the floor. It's such a childish thing to do, but he can't think of any other way to express his anger. "What are you thinking? Are you stupid? Where are you gonna go?"

Seifer doesn't answer any of these questions - possibly because he doesn't have answers, but more likely because he can tell that giving Zell answers isn't going to placate him any. Zell hasn't been so angry in a long time, longer than he can remember. He grabs Seifer by the front of his shirt and yanks him down to eye-level.

"What's wrong with you, Seifer? I mean, tell me this is a joke, or something. You're not actually thinking about _leaving_ Garden."

"Calm down," Seifer replies, which is not a denial of Zell's accusation, and is therefore exactly not what Zell wants to hear.

"Are you trying to make me angry?" he hisses, twisting his hands in Seifer's shirt. Seifer doesn't make any move to dislodge him, or to stop Zell from jerking him back and forth with angry movements - typical; Seifer won't even touch him when it's to defend himself.

"At least you're something," the other man says.

Zell is thrown off his stride. "What does that mean?" he asks.

"You're so fucking closed-up, it's hard to watch. I'd rather see you be angry than be nothing," Seifer goes on matter-of-factly - but if Zell's not wrong, he's a little angry, himself. "Do you think you're saving people the trouble of worrying about you by keeping it all crammed inside like that? Who are you trying to do a favor, Zell?"

"Look who's fucking talking!" Zell spits back, but he's suddenly reeling - Seifer actually makes _sense_, and it's hard to maintain his fury when the other man comes back with a tangible argument. He releases Seifer's shirt, and the taller man takes a step back, like he's eager to put some space between them.

"Anyway, you're not an idiot, so quit acting like one," Seifer says shortly, picking up his books from the floor. "Why the fuck would I stay at Garden if you're leaving? There's nothing for me here, or anywhere that you're not."

Zell wants to tell him that that's the worse attempt at a confession he's ever heard in his life, just to be snide, but his tongue is suddenly tied. He hadn't even really thought twice about Seifer when he decided he was going to leave Garden, and yet he had somehow just assumed that Seifer would be there next to him wherever he went, like always. Now that Seifer is telling him that's _exactly_ what he's doing, Zell can't be mad at him. In fact, he feels like he could cry - out of frustration, out of grief, maybe just out of exhaustion after everything that's happened - but he's not going to do it right here, right now.

He stomps out of Seifer's room without giving him a reply, and slams the door shut behind him - just for effect, really, because his anger has already deflated, leaving him with only a warm, squirming feeling of guilt and the familiar sense of confusion he gets whenever Seifer proves that he knows Zell better than Zell knows himself. He strides back down the hall toward his own room before Seifer can come out and decide he wants to pursue the argument. He'll go back and apologize later, and knowing Seifer (knowing him,) he'll be waiting.

67.

Zell doesn't realize how much stuff his Ma had until it all belongs to him. The process of cleaning, sorting, and packing things is more than he'd ever have imagined. It seems to take a lifetime to pack away a lifetime's worth of mementos - some things to stay; others to go to friends and neighbors or to charity.

He lays on the couch and stares up at the ceiling, surrounded by boxes and the smell of dust and cardboard. The room is dark because he never got up to turn on the light when night fell. After a while, he hears Seifer come into the living room, but the other man doesn't turn the light on.

"What are you doing?"

"Just taking a break," Zell says, which isn't a lie; it's just been a long break. Seifer makes a scoffing noise from the direction of the doorway.

"You need to go to bed," he says.

"I'm fine here," Zell replies, "I'm not planning to sleep, anyway."

Seifer mutters something under his breath that sounds like "such a fucking idiot."

"Just go to bed, okay? I'm fine here," Zell repeats. "I need to think about… stuff."

"I think you've done enough thinking about stuff. You've been at this shit for four days," Seifer says, sounding fed up. He's got every right to be; Zell hasn't been doing much of anything productive since they took over the house. The living room is a hodgepodge mess of boxes, empty shelves, and knickknacks, and Zell hasn't even ventured into the downstairs bedroom yet. No way in hell he's going to _sleep_ in there, and with Seifer in his bed upstairs, that leaves the couch - not that he's been sleeping much, in any case.

"You can't sleep on the couch forever," Seifer points out. And that's true.

He sounds so tired of arguing about it. So Zell gets up from the couch and goes upstairs, asking himself why he's even bothering. If it's just to make Seifer feel better, he shouldn't even care - but he does.

He climbs into his tiny childhood bed, feeling strange and uncomfortable - the house is too quiet without the presence of Ma bustling around downstairs. Then Seifer climbs into bed behind him, and Zell, for once, is grateful for the distraction that the other man being so near brings. All he can feel is the heat from where Seifer's body is pressed against his back, and it's somehow comforting, just to know that Seifer's there. And that despite Zell's best efforts to be a stubborn and unmanageable idiot, he insists on staying there.

Zell turns over to face Seifer, feeling like he should say something - an apology, or at least a thank you, is probably in order. No words come - but, as usual, Seifer is one step ahead of him. He wraps his arms around Zell and pulls him in close, tucking Zell's head under his chin, just as everything comes welling up from inside and Zell starts to cry.

"Shut up," Seifer mutters, which must be as close as he can get to consoling, but his touch speaks for itself; his hand rests gently on the back of Zell's head, softly stroking his hair; and when Zell's body starts to shake with the force of his sobbing, Seifer only holds him closer, as if he could squeeze Zell's grief away if he just tried hard enough. Even hours later, when Zell is long past done crying, he doesn't move away, and instead drifts slowly away to sleep, still tucked in Seifer's arms.

68.

"What time do you have to be back at Garden tomorrow?" Zell asks.

"Probably by ten or so. Nida says he's flying out at eleven sharp, and if I'm not there, I'll miss my ride," Quistis replies, but her tone is amused. Zell figures that no one, Quistis included, would be sad if it turned out she didn't have to go back to the orphanage. But she seems determined to go.

"It's been nice having you here," he tells her.

"It's been nice to be here. I guess Balamb will always feel like home to me." She turns her mug of tea around in circles on the table, staring into the hot liquid. "I've been thinking about moving back," she admits a moment later. "The truth is, I hate it down there at the Cape. It's dreary and the weather is just dismal. But I owe Matron a lot."

"I think she'd understand."

"Well, it's something I'm thinking about," she says again, this time with a shrug. Zell drinks his tea, and a comfortable silence stretches out between them, interspersed with noise from the children's show that Fiona is sitting happily watching on the telly in the corner of the room. Quistis' daughter is the most well-behaved infant Zell has ever seen, he thinks. "How are you holding up?" she asks him.

Zell is sick of being asked that, but since Quistis actually genuinely wants to know, he can't find himself irritated. "I'm doing okay," he answers, "I guess. I mean, it's not easy. But I'll get through it. And Seifer's here, so."

He could bite his tongue - _why_ did he say that? That was _really_ not a necessary remark. Quistis purses her lips, staring into her tea. From the corner, Fiona giggles at the image of a dancing blue dog on the TV screen. "Oh, come on," Zell says after a few moments, cracking a smile at Quistis' ultra-serious demeanor. "Aren't you even going to ask me what that's supposed to mean? Don't you want to know _why_ Seifer's even here?"

"I didn't think you'd tell if I asked," she confesses.

"Honestly, if I knew, I'd tell you," is Zell's reply. "It's a huge mystery to me."

"If he's useful for something, then I'm glad," she remarks, her facade softening. "He's so different from how he used to be. But then, so are you, so… maybe you're not the oddest couple I've ever seen."

"We're not a couple," Zell says, cradling his mug of tea in both hands. He can feel his face going red; he tries to blame it on the hot drink. Quistis' expression is clearly skeptical.

"If you two aren't a couple, then I don't think there's a word invented for whatever you are."

"Well… that's exactly the thing."

She just stares at him, obviously curious, but unwilling to pry for whatever reason. Zell contemplates. They've known each other long enough that she shouldn't have any qualms about asking him anything, and vice versa - and yet, here they are still afraid to intrude too much, to probe too far. It's stupid, is what it is. Quistis deserves answers, even if she's been refusing to ask the questions for months.

So Zell tells her everything. He starts at the beginning, and he has to rake through his brain for the bits and pieces sometimes, but the entirety of his relationship - such as it is - with Seifer slowly finds its way out. She listens attentively, and asks few questions - maybe because she doesn't think Zell can answer any of them. He stops just short of telling her about what happened last week, when he spent the night tangled up (very innocently, mind) in Seifer's arms, and he can't quite place a finger on _why_ he wants to keep that to himself. Quistis, after all, is the one who always thought it was weird that he and Seifer weren't having sex. Maybe he just doesn't want to prove her right.

"Do you want some more tea? I'm going to make a fresh cup," she says after digesting all the information he throws at her, and she stands up, taking her mug and Zell's into the kitchen. A minute later she returns, hands him his drink back, and then takes her seat next to him on the couch again. "That's some story," she begins, sipping gingerly at her hot tea.

She's taking it in really well, Zell thinks. He was a little unsure that he should be divulging so much about Seifer's mental state when the other man has done such a good job over the years of appearing normal, but since Quistis is no longer affiliated with Garden, he's not worried about that information getting back to anyone who might take it the wrong way. Of everything he's told her, actually, he's the most interested in her opinion on his and Seifer's relationship, what it seems like to her, but he's too embarrassed to ask outright.

"This… memory stuff," she starts again, frowning, "how, exactly…? How far does it go? Like, how much does he remember, is there anything from before the war?"

"Quis, I don't know," Zell says exasperatedly. She gives him a look like he's stupid.

"You should ask."

"It's not my business," he adds.

"Well, I guess you'd know better than me," she replies, with an air of holding back from lecturing. "But don't you think he owes you at least an explanation? If nothing else?"

Zell doesn't see how that could be so, because Seifer is the one who's done everything for him. But he only shrugs noncommittally. Quistis doesn't look satisfied with this response, but she doesn't push him, and they move on to other topics.

Dusk is falling later as he walks her back to the hotel where she's been staying, with Fiona waddling along beside them. "Can I give you a ride back to Garden in the morning?" he asks.

"Yeah… I'd like that," she says, casting an affectionate smile at him. She leans in to give him a hug, and doesn't release him for a while. Zell doesn't know how he never realized how much he missed her when she was away.

"Around 9:30?"

"That sounds perfect." She bends down to scoop up Fiona, who's pulling weeds out of the cracks in the cobblestone sidewalk. Before she goes inside, she pauses to give him a long, studying look. "Zell," she says, a half-smile lingering on her lips. "You'll keep me in the loop this time, won't you? About… things."

"I'll try," he tells her, which is as much as he can promise.

"I suppose that's as good as I'll get," she replies, laughing, and then she goes inside, leaving Zell to wander back home through the dark city streets alone.

69.

It's a few weeks before the house is cleaned up, everything organized, all of Ma's stuff either gone or packed away, and ready for showing. And Zell finally makes the decision he's been trying to avoid for weeks.

"I don't think I want to sell the house," he tells Seifer one night.

"It's your house. Do whatever you want with it," is Seifer's reply, which is his way of being supportive.

"But I don't… think I want to keep living here," Zell goes on uncertainly, not sure how to vocalize the uneasiness that haunts him in this house - it feels barren without his Ma around, and even with Seifer there, it's somehow lonesome. "So, I dunno… what am I going to do with it?"

Seifer looks up from his video game. "Are you thinking about moving away?"

"Away from Balamb? No," Zell says, shaking his head. Even besides the fact that Seifer is unwelcome in pretty much every country except here, Zell can't wrap his head around the idea of living anywhere but Balamb; it's too much his home. "Maybe find a place in town," Zell continues, half-talking to himself. "I could rent the house out. It's in a good spot, I bet tourists would love it."

He pauses, waiting for Seifer's input, but the other man doesn't offer an opinion. He'll have to force Seifer's hand. "What do you think?" he asks.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Well, I mean… if you don't want to, you know, keep living together… that's fine, I guess," Zell says stupidly, feeling thrown off. He had just _assumed_. Well. Didn't Seifer say something about not going anywhere that Zell's not? Was he wrong to assume that Seifer meant he'd still want to live with Zell after they left Garden?

Seifer heaves a sigh, snapping his game shut. "You are so dense sometimes, Zell, that it baffles me," he says, as though he can read Zell's mind and the stupid thoughts floating around therein. "You're living in your bubble again."

"Excuse me for not being able to read your fucking mind, okay?" Zell says sharply, irritated with the turn the conversation has taken. Seifer seems to be seizing every opportunity lately to take jabs at Zell, which is unfair, Zell thinks, because his skin is feeling pretty thin already with what's happened over the past few weeks. "Am I supposed to know what you're thinking all the time?"

"You'd think you would by now, since the only thing I really think about is you," Seifer replies, which effectively wipes whatever response Zell might have come up with from his mind. Seifer gets up from the couch and goes into the kitchen, leaving Zell to sit there and ponder on that. Just when he thinks Seifer's going to be an asshole… the line between being nice and being a dick, for Seifer, is so fine that sometimes Zell can't tell if it's there at all. Even his insults sometimes seem to be laced with a deep affection that renders Zell incapable of getting as annoyed at the other man as he'd like.

Seifer sticks his head back into the living room a minute later. "If you're serious about finding a different place," he says, supremely casual, "try and find one with a bigger bed, would you? I'm sick of trying to cram into that ridiculous kid's bed you've got."

Zell just blinks, and Seifer turns and disappears upstairs.

70.

It's a long time before Zell can work up the courage to ask the question he's been wanting to ask for months. Seifer only stares at him. "She left you?" he repeats.

"Yeah. That's what you said. Do you remember that…" Zell pauses; he's hesitant to call the exchange they'd had a "conversation", because it mostly involved Seifer yelling stuff at him. "That time when you told me about-"

"Yeah, I remember," Seifer cuts him off shortly.

"Okay… well, you never really explained what you meant, and it's been bothering me."

"I thought it was pretty much self-explanatory," Seifer says. His tone is cutting, which would probably irritate Zell normally, but Seifer's expression is pained, like he's starting to get a headache, and Zell knows it's because he's searching for something inside his mind that's not there. He wishes he didn't have to push this subject, but he's waited way too long to ask Seifer this already.

"Well then I'm an idiot, okay, because I don't understand it," Zell says. "You said that she… the sorceress left things. Things she could use against you. I don't know where I fit in there."

Seifer is quiet for such a long time that Zell is sure he's not going to answer, and he tries to resign himself to the agony of never knowing exactly what space he take up in Seifer's head. "If you don't want to tell me, then fine, just… say that," he goes on after a while.

"It's not that. It's hard to put into words," Seifer says, rubbing his forehead. "There were so many… There were a lot of things in that place. Some good things, some bad things. It was hard for me to tell which things were real and which weren't." He pauses, shuts his eyes, as if just remembering it is tiring for him. "It's still hard. I can't always tell what's real, or what she created."

"Created? Like, what… like memories?"

"Feelings," Seifer explains. Zell says nothing. He can't think of a thing to say.

It's a while before Seifer speaks again. "You were there," he says slowly. "I don't know… there were a lot of people, but you were the most… real. When you were around, I could think more clearly. Sometimes I could get a glimpse of the real world and remember what was happening. But mostly it was just bad dreams. It's funny," he goes on, not sounding like he finds any of this funny at all, "I don't know _why_ it was you. Maybe she just picked you at random from the people in my head. Maybe she went through my memories like flipping through a catalogue, and saw something I didn't. It could have been anybody. But it was you."

Zell wishes he could tell Seifer to stop; he doesn't want to hear any more, he doesn't care anymore. He's heard enough. Making Seifer relive this is cruel. Before he can say anything, however, Seifer continues.

"I don't know how many times I had to tell myself that none of it was real before I could escape that place," he mutters. He brings his feet up onto the couch and sits with his arms wrapped around his knees - he's twenty-three years old, and he looks like a child after being scolded by Matron. "I had to convince myself. None of it was real. Not you. Not… anything from that place. I woke up in Deling City with just these pieces, fragments of myself, and the one thing that I was absolutely sure of was that you weren't real… and then you showed up right in front of me, you and Trepe, to take me back to Garden, and I couldn't comprehend it."

Zell remembers that day - he remembers Quistis crying the whole trip there, and the way Seifer's eyes kept sliding around him, like he wasn't even really seeing him. He had to punch a wall just to get Seifer to pay attention to him. He had wished it could have been Seifer's face.

"It's still hard," Seifer goes on after a while, running his hands through his hair. He looks so tired that all Zell wants to do is take Seifer's head and place it in his lap, and let the other man just lay there until he's slept away all the bad dreams. "Sometimes I still can't tell… what's real and what's not. The… the stuff that I feel… I can't tell," Seifer says quietly, rubbing his eyes, sounding frustrated. "Was it there before? I don't remember. Did she create it? How I feel about you, is that something she just conjured up to use against me? Is it real, or not?"

"It doesn't matter," Zell says. "If you feel it, it's real. How it came to exist, it's… not important."

Seifer just stares at him. Evidently that idea hadn't occurred to him. Zell's hands are shaking, and suddenly, he begins to laugh, startling the other man. "You are terrifying," he tells Seifer, shaking his head.

Seifer, too, manages a smile. "Well, now you get it," he says, and he seems relieved.

They sit for a while without speaking, and Zell wonders idly if there's more - not that Seifer hasn't just given him enough food for thought to last the rest of his life. This new information satisfies Zell's curiosity on a number of points, and at the same time raises innumerably more questions, but they don't need to be asked right now.

"It's easier when you're around," Seifer says after some time, and for the first time during their conversation, he sounds reluctant - as though he's not sure he wants to divulge this. "It's easier to tell the difference between real things and the other things. I'm more sure of myself. But sometimes I think… what if you're not real? That's what's really terrifying. The thought that someday I might blink, and you'll have disappeared, and then I won't have anything to hold on to."

"I won't disappear," Zell says, and when Seifer looks over at him, giving him a long, scrutinizing stare, he starts to feel his face heat up. But he refuses to be embarrassed. "I mean…" he begins again, more firmly, "I won't if you won't. Deal?"

Seifer doesn't speak for a long moment, and Zell is half-wondering if he's going to laugh at this proposal. But he only smiles. "Okay," he says, and Zell doesn't even remember the last time he saw Seifer actually looking happy, or if he ever did, but it suits him. "Deal."


End file.
